


Mask of Night

by Batsymomma11



Series: Phantom of the Opera [2]
Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deformity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Murder, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-28 00:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15696204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: The modernized version of Phantom of the Opera where true loves does make a difference and even sometimes the less than perfect guy, gets the girl.**Temporarily on hold as I regroup. Not abandoning work, but will need longer. Thanks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Phantom of the Opera or any of it's characters.  
> I do own the story, in its updated version, and the adapted characters.  
> Enjoy!

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “Did I not instruct you all to read chapters fifteen through twenty by Monday? Did you dare come to my class unprepared?”

            I stare at the dark screen, my throat working as I think of how many hours I spent pouring over the excessive reading my musical theory professor had assigned. Though all that stands between me and his anger is a darkened screen, speakers and forty students, I still feel wrath as a physical blow and I cringe as his voice rises in volume at the lack of response.

            “I will be testing you all on the assigned reading today. Pop quiz.”

            Several brave souls protest and I feel myself shrink further in the plastic desk chair, my hands going sweaty as I picture a vein throbbing in Professor Leroux’s temple. Though I have never seen his face, it is not difficult to imagine the man as a truly passionate and violent person. His class has been both a blessing to my musical performance major and a curse. I am managing to scrape by with a B, but only just. At this rate, I may not make it to the end of the semester.

            “Take out your tablets, I have preloaded an exam under my class’s drop box tab. You have the rest of the class period to complete it. No notes. No speaking. I assure you, just because you cannot see me, does not mean that I do not see and hear you.”

            When the room falls silent as a sick ward, I quietly do as instructed same as the rest of my peers and we browse the college tablets with varying shades of fear. I am one of the best students in the class and even I struggle. I cannot imagine how a person with lesser grades does not feel terror under such strict guidelines. Though Leroux is the best, he is also the hardest.

            Just as I suspect, the exam is as challenging as his previous attempts and I manage to complete it with three minutes to spare before collapsing in my seat. When the grade automatically comes back to me, I grip the tablet so hard that I fear the glass may crack under the pressure. I have passed. But with a particularly low B.

            “Miss Darlington. Come to my desk. Now.”

            Unaccustomed to having ever been called for a private counsel with the mysterious man, I stand slowly, taking my book bag and thermos with me as every pair of eyes in the room land on my back. I ignore them though it is a great struggle to do so and I find my feet squarely in front of the blacked out monitor where a professor might sit. It is eerie to picture the man studying me whilst I am unable to see even a stitch of him. But I stand with my spine stiff and my hands clasped around my bag as though it is a shield.

            “Did you do your reading Miss Darlington?”  

            “I did.”

            “Then why did you score so poorly?”

            I blink at the monitor, feeling my forehead crease in a frown, “I am likely one of the highest scores. I don’t see how that is poor. Considering.”

            “Do you wish to only pass my class or excel?”

            It is on the tip of my tongue to tell him that passing his class is a victory however it is accomplished but I think better of it. Instead, I nod meekly, shrugging at what I hope to be his camera lens, “I would of course wish to do my best.”

            There is a deep sigh in response and I can sense his patience has run thin with me. As it so easily does with everyone. Though he may be a genius, he is a rather curt and ferocious one. I dare not cross his path mildly. Enough stories have been told to frighten small children into submission.

            “I want you all to go home and read your books. Everyone failed the exam except for Miss Darlington, so it might behoove you all to study a bit more before the real exam on Wednesday. Class dismissed.”

            Blinking, I feel my eyes go wide as students begin to stand and chatter in excited relief and I too feel my hopes rejuvenated.

            “Miss Darlington.”

            I freeze, my hand going stiff on the thermos, “Yes Professor?”

            “I will be emailing you my address and an appointment time by the end of the week.”

            “I beg your pardon?” I stare stupidly at the screen and it is only when the silence stretches ridiculously do I realize he must not have heard me. “Professor…I don’t know what you mean…”

            “Are you not auditioning for the college’s intermountain opera theater?”

            Again he shocks me and I am merely able to nod. I pray he does see as he claims and am rewarded with a small sound of amusement. “Then you might wish to arrive at my home at the specified time. No one gets into the opera without my express approval. I am the gatehouse Miss Darlington.”

            “Wait,” I shake my head slowly as dread blossoms horrifically under my breastbone, “I am supposed to audition with a Mister Edmond.”

            This time there is a decided chilliness in the response I receive and I am struck with how silly I must look arguing with a darkened monitor. “My name is Edmond Leroux, Miss Darlington. It would be wise of you to update yourself on all of the musical staff if you wish to join the opera. I have and always will be the one to accept auditions. Though I do not take an active role in the operas themselves.”

            “Oh.”

            “Indeed. Be on time Miss Darlington, I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

 

**_Edmond_ **

****

            I find that I am surprisingly distracted as I stare out the window to my music room once again in transfixed study. The late summer blooms are fading and in a sad way, my garden’s trees are beginning to bare their branches as naked limbs. They resemble the arms of a lonely ballerina, bent and thin but achingly beautiful. I feel the corner of my mouth twitch in a smile and I shake my head, turning my thoughts back to the piano’s keys in front of me.

            The mass of black notes scribbled onto the page in front of me look chaotic and poor, but I can hear their melody as light as the kiss of summer that haunts my windows and I feel my eyes slip closed to revel a moment in it. Strings come in first, their chorus elegant but not overly loud followed by clarinets, flutes, and a soaring cello solo. I feel my fingers stretch to reach the black and white ivory beneath them and I find the warmth of my grand piano filling in the gaps of my mind. Playing along flawlessly as though I am reading music rather than reciting what I have just penned.

            It is so enthralling, so very lyrical I feel my lips part and gentle words are meeting the melody of their own accord. It is as it always is. Music finds me, writes its melody within my heart, pressing and yearning and melding until I am helpless but to release it either onto a page or out into the air.

            There is little warning as to my audience aside from the gentle creak of aged wood, but I hear it clearly enough beyond my final notes.

            “Your voice…you sing so…you…”

            I blink into the unlit hallway which is nearly as dark as the room of which I have been writing save the dying embers of a hearth and manage to see only a smudge of shadow.  

            “You are late Miss Darlington.”

            Though I had been caught up in my music and likely wouldn’t have noticed her late arrival, I am suddenly feeling defensive about being caught at my most vulnerable. Even my throat feels tight and my eyes moist from the emotions still clinging to me in the echoes of my latest song.

            “I beg your pardon Mr. Leroux, I was caught in traffic.”

            “An excuse.”

            She walks further into the room, allowing a slant of light to cut across her face and I am glad that I still sit before the piano. That she cannot see me well. Because she is exquisitely beautiful in person. Of course, I had noticed this, had even allowed myself a mild appreciative study of her person, but that had been far different than now. Now, she is standing in my music room.

            Charlene Darlington…an average student who wishes to audition for my opera and yet I am struck speechless by the disarray of auburn hair that just meets her chin. Though her haircut is as edgy as her impeccable clothes, her eyes are what standout most and I am silent as I watch the color spark from sapphire to cobalt in anger.

            “A reason. Not an excuse. But I do apologize for any inconvenience.”

            “Never mind that,” I rise from the piano bench, feeling absurdly off balance and stride to the far wall, keeping to the shadows of the music room. If she has not seen the edges of the mask I wear, she will soon enough. And for some odd reason, I wish that she might never see it. “Did you come prepared then?”

            “I wasn’t told what to bring…”

            I sigh, pressing my finger and thumb to my temples as a wave of agitation rushes over me, “Please tell me you have a solo of some sort you’ve been working on in preparation for me.”

            “I…I could sing you a song I know well.”

            “But that you haven’t prepared for me?” I scoff, knowing I am being a bit unfair, but not feeling particularly merciful. She is off-putting to me and the sooner I can be rid of her, the better off we both shall be.

            “That is correct Professor.”

            “Fine. Do you need accompaniment or do you wish to sing acapella?”

            Her lips press into a line, eyes snapping at me in irritation and I find it amusing rather than insubordinate as I might with any other student. Though…at her age, she is likely only a few years’ junior to my thirty years. It is no wonder she is filled with arrogance and pride. She likely thinks herself too old for such treatment. I might be inclined to agree. Then again, her vulnerability and adolescence is equally intoxicating in rose scented waves. Rose?

            I blink, averting my gaze from hers to focus on the naked trees again.

            “Accompaniment would be lovely if you know Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera?”

            There is a sick sense of irony that spikes in my middle at her choice of song and I have to stop myself from laughing maniacally before I respond. Instead, I walk the length of the room to the piano and grant her the first glance of my face she might see. There is little I can do to prepare for the jolt of seeing a man wearing a mask over half of his face, but I do my best not to flinch as her eyes widen, hold and then fall away suddenly from me.

            When the silence falls as a heavy fist between us, I seat myself at the bench, allow the pads of my fingers to caress the keys I know will begin her song and then shut her out as easily as I have everyone else.

            Until she begins to sing.

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            The entirety of my solo performance I am trembling in earnest, my belly a hollow sensation that threatens to regurgitate the meager offers of sustenance I threw at it before arriving here. I had neither expected nor been prepared for Professor Leroux’s wealth which was abundantly clear upon my arrival at the address proffered.

            But that had been nothing compared to the angel’s voice I had been given chills from as I’d walked the length of his entryway and followed the lilting notes to this door. He’d been singing and playing, his voice so very pure and rich, as melted chocolate upon decadent dessert. I’d wanted to stay and listen, soak and beg for more when he’d stopped.

            It had been frightfully embarrassing how much I’d gravitated towards the shadowed figure perched on a bench.

            And then he’d stepped into the dwindling afternoon sunlight and I’d caught sight of the reason why he’d never taught his musical theory class in person. In obvious attempts to hide a deformity, injury or some such ugly mark, he wears a half mask. The color of midnight black, dark as his onyx hair and equally forbidding as it covers half his face.

            When the final notes burn the back of my throat and I have spent my energy into the song, I can feel the flush rising in my cheeks of pride. I know that I did well. It is not simply because I can see Professor Leroux’s eyes on my face, his throat working in words unspent, but by the rush of warmth that now fills the room. As if the very wood that has built this house is leaning towards us to hear my voice. It is gratifying to say the least but I find I am torn at hearing what Leroux might say. I pray he will be kind to me. Just this once.

            “C’etait belle.”

            “I don’t know what that means…” I swallow stiffly, wiping the dampness from my palms as I feel a second flush rise to my cheeks having nothing to do with my performance and everything to do with how his foreign words make me feel.

            “It is French. And I said that was beautiful.”

            “Oh.”

            He smiles softly, rising to a stand with the elegance of a man well versed in physical fitness. Instead of walking, he prowls. A long gait, marked with muscle beneath the cut of a well sized suit. If I were better acquainted with expensive fabrics and tailors, I might guess his suit to be made by Armani or Vittorio. But as it is, I can simply stare at the way his shoulders and thighs look perfectly encased by the black material. In fact, it is impossible not to notice that his entire outfit is black from the mask to the jacket, pants and shirt which has two buttons left open at the neck. I am helpless but to say it distracts me to no end as he moves close enough I can see his pulse flutter against the collar.

            Tearing my eyes from the offending collar, I find his eyes are whiskey and warm as the summery tan his skin seems to wear and I blink up at him as a knock kneed child. “So…I made it?”

            He raises a brow, “I would assume so. I am very impressed with you. Too impressed…”

            It is my turn to raise a brow and I feel my insides flutter as his eyes fall to my lips momentarily. “I didn’t realize that was possible with you.”

            Leroux nods, “Apparently it is. Please, tell me more about yourself. I can see you are no young and feckless college student.”

            Though my first instinct is to stare again at his mask, perhaps even ask him why he wears it, I respond as expected and follow him to the twin chairs in front of his window. The sun is dipping below the horizon line and I am surprised to see that his attention is momentarily absent entirely as he watches it fall.

            “You are right.”

            He turns to me, eyes holding mine in their snare a moment, “About which part?”

            “I am not as young as the average college student. I started late. But that makes me no less determined in my career choice.”

            “And what exactly is that choice?”

            I feel my eyes dip to the floor, a sign of a weakness and I pull them back to his, “I am hoping to be a formal opera singer at the met.”

            “The met? Here in New York?”

            I nod, feeling a sudden rush of embarrassment at the way his hands fist atop the armrests and his eyes narrow.

            “You have had no classical training.”

            “You can tell?”

            He inhales softly, reaching for a decanter that holds an amber liquid on the little maple table beside his chair before pouring himself a drink. I don’t expect him to offer me a drink nor do I wish it, but am still surprised when his lips twitch in a smile before he flicks a glance at me. “Any professional would be able to tell Charlene.”

            I flinch at his use of my first name and it is wholly unsettling that is sounds particularly right coming from his perfectly shaped lips. Lips which thankfully I can see just fine beyond his odd mask.

            “Then teach me.”    

            He turns in his chair, glass resting in one hand loosely, eyes flashing to mine with such ease and possession I feel stupidly caught for my brazen request. If he knows my second thoughts or my panicked heart which is battering against my ribs he gives no indication.

            “Teach you, Charlene?”

            “Do you…do you really have to say my name like that?”

            His lips press together, eyes fluttering away, “Like what?”

            I wave a hand in the air, “Never mind. You said I am in the college opera. That’s all I needed to hear. It’s getting late.”

            “Wait.”

            I stare at him, legs already straightening to a stand freezing in their position, “I shouldn’t have asked you. You…you clearly have concerns of your own.”

            Leroux stands so quickly that I do not have time to react before I find myself nearly nose to nose with him as he glares down at me. His eyes have darkened to an expensive brandy and I find they are even more rich in color this close. A ring of gold surrounds his pupil and though Leroux looks as though he might wish to snap me as an obnoxious twig I am too caught up by his closeness to care. Where did this brazen woman come from? What am I doing?

            “Concerns? You mean this?” his right hand comes up to the black mask and brushes errantly at the side but makes no move to remove it, “You are correct. I have other concerns. Though they are none of yours and never will be.”

            “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

            “I think you did, but that is beside the point.”

            I am too befuddled to say anything and so I simply nod at him.

            “You wish a teacher? An instructor to classically train you?”

            “I do.” My voice sounds horrifically squeaky and I realize I am shaking as a paper sheaf.

            “Then I will accept you as my pupil but only under strict guidelines. Guidelines which I will expect you to sign legally.”

 

***

 

            There has been a space of a week before my first lesson with Professor Edmond Leroux and yet, the entirety of my week has been as any other. Nothing heralds an ending or beginning though clearly it is something of such dire means and I strain to sit still during my last class. Mrs. Harrow is a boorish sort with long black lifeless hair pinched at the nape of her neck and a penchant for patterned sweaters but today she is most assuredly uninteresting.

            Before the bell rings, I am already standing, gathering my book bag and now empty paper coffee cup in a vise-like grip. Mrs. Harrow’s eyes, dark navy, catch mine and an elegant brow rises in irritation but she has no say in the matter when the bells toll and I am released from her computer technologies class. A required pre-requisite for my major. Something I, myself, have absolutely no interest in.

            I get to my car quickly, finagling the dying gears and sticky clutch until I’m out onto the humming streets of Rockford. The town is small, but only an hour from the sprawling metropolis of New York and I am pleased to have been accepted into the liberal art college of my choice. Though it has taken every ounce of my thin savings and I will arise from my collegiate days as a pauper, I hope to make up for it with the success I wish. Something that feels far closer to my awaiting hands than it did a week ago.

            I smile, pulling cautiously into the large circle drive of Professor Leroux’s home. This day, I am early, as per his request so I can sign his non-disclosure agreement he has drafted and I feel a giddy surge of adrenaline rush through me. It is impossible to deny that my feelings are not merely over the prospect of singing again, but for seeing Mr. Leroux…Edmond.

            Somehow saying his first name in my mind feels far too personal and I mentally wash it away as I exit my sedate little coup. It is a pitiful comparison to that of the wealth so clearly seen before me, but I do my best to ignore it and move towards the double doors which rise in a friendly manner above a long stone stair case wrapped in open arms of vine covered railings.

            This time, I knock several times before entering his home, but it is the same as a week past. He does not answer, nor does it appear anyone else will. A comical penguin suited butler perhaps. So I crack the door open as any other person might, call into the shadowed interior which smells of lemon furniture polish and fresh ink then slip inside carrying my book bag.

            I feel pitifully out of dress within the confines of his museum-like home and I glance down at the dirt encrusted sneakers I donned this morning in my rush to leave my flat. They had been a poor choice in footwear considering there is a hole where I can see the faded blue of a sock peeking through near the toes, but I’d had little choice in the matter.

            “I see you are on time this afternoon, Miss Darlington.”

            I jump, one hand flying to my chest, the other clenching automatically into a fist, “Professor…you startled me.”

            He is standing near the entrance of the room I’d invaded upon in our last exchange and I sense that he has just finished working on something. Another masterpiece of song no doubt. There is a warmth to his stance, a gentleness that seems to mark the corners of his mouth and he dips his chin in a polite nod. “I apologize. We should get started. We wouldn’t want to waste each other’s time, now would we?”

            I blink at him, my tongue and lips suddenly feeling mute as he offers a hand to me as though it is a most natural thing to be escorted in such a fashion and I silently accept him. Callouses and warmth swallow my hand in a firm grip and I feel smaller than I ever have before. He says nothing, does little more than glance in my direction before guiding me down the hall, past the room I expected to be singing in, to another wing of his home altogether. This one is painted in buttery yellows and though the windows are heavily curtained in creamy velvet, sunlight slants its way into the room in becoming streams.

            Professor Leroux continues to guide me into the space, walking with an unhurried manner in that same prowling gait and I am transfixed by the way his dark mask highlights his tanned skin. He wears a simple dress shirt today, white and crisp, no jacket, the collar open two buttons again tucked into a pair of dove gray slacks with a leather belt. Even his shoes look impeccable with capped toes and not a scuff in sight. I feel even sorrier for my choice of shoes, jeans and ratty sweatshirt than before.

            If I’d been hoping to appear as serious as he about this new endeavor, I am failing on impressions.  

            Fighting a blush I pray he does not see, I stop at the glossy edge of another grand piano, this one somehow appearing even larger than the one in his other music room and I stare vacantly at a small sheaf of stacked papers he leaves standing in front of.

            “That is your contract with me. I outlined a simple list of my expectations. You must be on time for rehearsal, which of course you will come prepared for every time, unless you are ill. If you do become ill, I expect to be notified. My cell phone number is listed on the bottom of the document for such instances.”

            He is leaning over one of my shoulders, warm breath tickling my right cheek and I feel my stomach hollow out at the smell of expensive aftershave and that same smell of ink. Leroux presses a finger into the page where a second bullet point marks it and I can see dark smudges of ink blotting his fingertips. The man must be working on his music day and night.

            “Here, I list your rehearsal schedule, the opera’s rehearsals and of course as a final note, I expect you to keep whatever we speak about here to yourself. My life my business kept as private as possible.”

            I tip my chin to catch his gaze and find that he is closer than I thought, his lips near enough that if I were a more brazen woman I might steal a kiss. Blinking out of his ocher gaze, I shake my head, “You don’t want anyone to know you are my teacher?”

            He frowns, “Not necessarily. I just don’t wish to draw any more attention to myself than there already is. I’m sure you have heard the stories about me. Perhaps have even some of your own ideas about me. The university doesn’t need this to get out and honestly neither do I. Clearly,” his hand brushes his mask as if to remind me of its presence, “I prefer to be left alone. And I don’t need any newspaper articles, TV sensationalism or such ilk finding me because of this.”

Before I can stop myself I feel the words come tumbling from my lips unbidden and I watch as his eyes crinkle in the corners with amusement, “Why did you agree to teach me in the first place if doing so puts you at risk? I mean, clearly you wished to keep your appearance hidden from the world. And you’ve managed to do that just fine.”

            He raises a brow at me, “Perhaps I simply like you.”

            I open my mouth to answer, to say anything back to him but find that nothing seems suitable as an answer to such honesty. But what does he mean by such a statement? That he enjoys me? Likes my work as his student? Likes my voice? Or perchance does he feel as attracted to me as I do to him?

            “Will you be signing the contract Miss Darlington?”

            I glance back down at the papers he still has beneath one hand and nod, offering my signature with a quick flourish and a half smile. “It’s done.”

            “Oh not so, Miss Darlington. It is only the beginning,” though he is not smiling to say the least, he seems pleased enough with me and I watch as he strides away from me leaving aftershave tingling in my nose and I sense that I’ve missed something vital as his heat vaporizes too. “You may discard your things over there. But please, we must be timely if you wish to improve.”

            I nod, moving at a fast clip to the stuffed chairs before a similar looking hearth and I drop my book bag and shuck my sweatshirt. I’m beginning to sweat and if it’s the last thing I do, I would prefer not to smell on top of looking so out of sorts.

            Standing before the grand piano, I watch as Leroux takes a seat at the bench, looks up at me and then plays a chord. “We will begin with scales. I will offer your starting pitches and then you will give me a full octave using an arpeggio for each note. You will end on the same note you began. I expect you to end on the same pitch you started.”

            “Without you playing?”

            He nods grimly, his eyes a challenging shade of coffee and I smile stupidly, feeling horrendously nervous all over again. It doesn’t appear that he finds this quite as humorous as I do. I sense that he is testing me and I pray I do not fail him.  

            “Listen to the pitches inside your mind, then sing them. Sing them on the vowel Ah to begin. And please, use proper diction and enunciation when reaching the upper register. We don’t want a pinched tone.”

            Leroux plays the chord, then instead of watching me struggle through the exercise as I expected from the comfort of his bench, he moves to a stand and gives me his back. Unsettled, I close my eyes and picture the notes, try to see them as living beings rather than black blobs with staffs and then begin the octave he has requested in the key of C. It is a simple enough scale, though at its end after I have sang the entire length of the exercise I am sweating and Leroux’s shoulders are taut. The fabric of his dress shirt forming tiny lines as wrinkles on an angry face.

            “Again.”

            “The same exercise?”

            “You were off. So yes, again. Until you perfect it.”

            I open my mouth to argue but find he has turned and stares at me with eyes so very dark and unforgiving I feel my teeth click together in acquiesce. Nodding, I wait for him to give me the chord he wishes me to use and I begin again knowing I may be singing this one scale quite a long time with the level of perfection he is demanding.


	2. Chapter 2

Edmond

She does not do poorly. But it is not as I’d hoped either. Charlene’s focus is elsewhere and it shows as I tap the piano to keep her on rhythm, my agitation coming through the music I have her sightseeing easily. Both of us have long since grown tired and I stand leaning against the piano’s lid, my head throbbing and shoulders so very tense I imagine a phone call to my chiropractor might be in order.   
“Stop!”  
“What have I done wrong now?”  
I raise a brow at her, unfolding from my position to stare down at her. Her cheeks are red from exertion and though she is putting up a good front, I realize I have pushed her harder than I should have. She is exhausted as any normal person might be. Only I would forget the limitation due a student. I grow too engrossed, too impassioned to notice when the hours dwindle by. As it is, I think we may have been practicing for just over three hours. “You must simply stop. If I cannot keep this up, then surely you cannot.”  
Charlene rolls her shoulders, swiping a hand over her glistening forehead before emptying her cheap throw away water bottle. “Do you have perfect pitch?”  
“Indeed.”  
“This must be torture for you then.”   
I am surprised at her knowledge of such and I am of course intrigued though I do my best to school my interest. Offering her my hand, I wait until she grabs her book bag and discarded sweatshirt then begin the trek back to the front of the house. It is well into the evening now and though I like to keep the house dark, I find myself flipping on lights as we go for Charlene’s sake.   
“You know of someone with that particular ailment?”  
She turns slightly, a cute nose and slender jaw entering into my periphery, “I wouldn’t call it an ailment, but yes. My father used to have it. But he passed away many years ago.”  
“You must have been close.”  
She casts me a smile that causes the most unnatural speed to my heart and I find my hand tightening on her own. “Indeed.”  
We remain silent until the approach of the double doors which lead out to her car and I feel suddenly unsure of myself as though I am leaving a young woman at her door after a date. Though it is far from such intimacies between us, it is clear there is a band of trust that has been forged and she trusts me more as I do her. She believes I can help her as much as I know it. And it causes a comfortable burn to settle in my stomach, something that beckons me to seal our new bond with something wholly inappropriate for a student and teacher.   
I back away, releasing the softness of her hand from my calloused one and offer a stiff bow. “Good evening Miss Darlington.”  
She moves to leave then hesitates, “Will you call me Charlene?”  
My heart somehow manages to climb a degree faster and I am glad she is far enough away she cannot hear how ragged my breathing has gotten, “If that is what you wish.”  
“I do.”  
Though I am half-tempted to offer my own first name as an exchange, I find it sticks in my mouth and I merely nod mildly at her before turning to leave. I dare not glance back again, nor do I think she expects me to. There was disappointment in her blue gaze when I had offered it, but resignation too. It is better this way I think. She does not understand me nor does she truly ever wish to. Charlene knows not the man that lingers behind the mask. No person does and it is for the best. 

Charlene

I stand resolute before the now familiar gloss of Leroux’s grand piano and my mind feels as taut as the muscles running the length of my spine.   
“What would help you Charlene?”  
I jerk from the solitude of my study and find that I am not nearly as alone as I’d hoped. When Leroux had said I was free to rehearse here before our allotted time I had taken him up on the offer. But this day, I feel the weight of life and its string of choices as a heavy ballast around my neck. I scarcely feel like singing, let alone scraping through my part in the opera and memorizing the Italian he had threatened. I feel as a raw piece of meat left scalding on a stove. If I am pushed too hard, I will likely tear.   
I am already turning from the piano and the spread of my music when I catch sight of Leroux and his appearance is startling to say the least. Dressed in a cotton crew neck t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans I am very nearly standing with my mouth open as a pair of black Nikes also appear to be fixed to his feet.   
“You look…different.”  
He smirks at me, a steady pair of chocolate eyes still holding mine as he approaches my side, “You didn’t answer my question.”  
“I don’t have an answer for you Mr. Leroux.”  
Leroux exhales softly, his hands moving to press into the top of the piano’s lid, “I think perhaps it might be more natural if you called me Edmond now. Don’t you think Charlene?”  
This offering feels a bright spark, a tiny handhold to lighten the load I bear and I nod at him, daring to even smile as he edges closer to me. Though it still seems too early for such declarations, I daresay that Leroux…Edmond, is becoming a dear friend to me. Someone that I might say I trust most, but that would be foolish. He appreciates my originality and I put up with his surly and snappish attitude. A symbiosis as it were but is merely that. We are now a convenience to each other and nothing more.   
“Well, Edmond, I don’t feel much like talking.”  
He is silent a moment, his mouth pressing into a firm line, hands still framing the lid with the touch of a skilled surgeon, “Do you feel like singing?”  
I open my mouth to answer honestly, to tell him that I’d rather cancel my lesson and go home but he stops me with a hand, his fingers sealing mine to the glossy wood.   
“I don’t mean rehearse. I mean simply to sing. Do you wish it?”  
I stare at him a moment, trying to decipher his meaning but fail entirely when his right hand leaves mine and he is guiding me over to his piano bench. Waiting until I have seated myself, he takes the place beside me and I am flushing absurdly as a lanky flamingo. Though it seems I have out dressed him for once, I am still wearing a plain cardigan and a pair of jeans. The scarf that had added a pop of color to the ensemble is already discarded in the habitual pile of my book bag and belongings. I wish I had it now as he shifts to be closer to me and adjusts his hands on the ivory keys.   
It feels so incredibly personal to sit this close to him. To feel his jean-clad thigh brush mine as his feet go to the brassy pedals. Casting me a gentle smile, something that makes my heart skip about within my chest, Edmond’s eyes slip closed and he starts the introduction to a song I know well.   
“Do you know it?”  
Of course I know it. It is another song from Phantom of the Opera. One of my very favorites and I stiffen beside him, unsure if I will be able to sing it to his level of perfection.   
Edmond does not stop playing, though he leans closer, his breath lingering at my cheek, “Just sing, Charlene. Enjoy it. I know, that you know it. It is clearly a favorite. Today, let us simply sing and enjoy. The rest can wait a day.”  
Little does he know that today I have received two separate devastating blows. I have failed an algebra exam…something that counted for more than it ought to have and…my eyes close tightly, my hands fisting in my lap to the point I lose feeling in them and it takes me several seconds to realize that Edmond has stopped playing and the music room is silent. Only our breathing is a steady reminder of the presence of two souls here and I blink up at him as one of his hands closes over my fists.   
“I am a safe person to speak to, Charlene.”  
I frown down at our hands. Mine are far more pale and though his dwarf mine, it is clear that they are far more beautiful. Veined and strong, they are the hands of a creator. A genius.   
“You are my instructor.”  
He sighs, “I think we both can agree that I am more than that now. I am a friend.”  
His admission causes a flutter in my gut and I shake my head, “Regardless, you shouldn’t bother yourself with my problems.”  
Edmond’s hand flexes over mine, finally drawing my eyes to his and I stare at the whiskey irises that hold me, study me and seem to plead for understanding. Are we truly friends now? Does a handful of weeks as teacher and student make us friends?   
I think of our hours spent together in either debate, backbreaking work or triumphant success and it is easy to imagine Edmond as a friend. But in truth, perhaps I see him as more than just a friend and to have him say it so plainly, so very black and white makes a part of my soul burn in indignation. Though I’ve no rights to wish anything else from him.   
“I got some bad news today.”  
His lips firm, creases bracketing the corners and I sense he is worried for me, “Not too bad I hope.”  
“Bad enough I’m afraid. I’m sure you are aware that I am not as well to do, as say some of the other students on campus…” I stop the words, feeling a rash of embarrassment rise in my cheeks, “And to be honest, I’m not sure I can afford to graduate next year. I am short the money for my tuition. But like I said, you shouldn’t bother yourself with my problems.”  
A finger hooks beneath my chin and my stomach bottoms out entirely, particularly as it draws my face closer to Edmond’s so he can look at me more clearly. I wish there were not tears of frustration burning my eyes, but there are and I realize that even a bit of shame burns there too. Something I’ve no wish for this successful and wealthy man to see. I pull my chin from his grasp, forcing my gaze to the keys of the piano he abandoned and I gesture at them vaguely. Surely singing would be better than this new and intense way of which he wishes to speak to me. I am suddenly feeling unprepared to stand so vulnerable before him.   
“I’d rather sing.”  
I can tell I’ve irritated him. Done something wrong, but still, he is graceful in his withdrawal from me and as his fingers re-align on the keys and the first notes of introduction spill into the room, I can feel the shift in him. He is angry. Frustrated. And I can hear it in his voice, something I’ve not heard in weeks, as it flows around us in honey sweet notes.   
It is the love song in Phantom of the Opera between Raoul and Christine. The pair of juvenile and naïve lovebirds that meet atop the opera house and profess their love with the ease of best friends. I have never known such a love, but I find it easier than I thought to forget where I am sitting and what my worries are for a moment. Particularly as Edmond’s eyes catch mine and he seems to relax into the song as well, his eyes melting from an angry coffee to a liquid brandy.   
I sing the lyrics back to him, something like excitement fizzling within my middle until I fear I might not be able to catch my breath. A condition that is worsened entirely when Edmond sings with me in the chorus and our voices meet as long lost lovers reunited. I should care that his eyes burn me or that his leg is pressed into mine and my face is heating as a tall-tell sign of his effect on me, but I cannot. I am too engrossed in this moment with him and until the last note is played, I stay in this moment, savoring and allowing my stress to bleed away as a toxic poison being purged. 

 

Edmond

I had intended upon making her feel better. I had not thought that singing with Charlene would have such an impact on me, but clearly I underestimated and I am left with a vibrating need that hollows my insides with wanton foolishness.   
“That was…quite enjoyable.”  
Her eyes have lightened to robin’s egg blue and she smiles shyly, one hand going to tuck a piece of runaway hair behind an ear. My hand itches to untuck it, just to watch her pull it back again and I school the urge with the utmost control. It would do no good to frighten her. Or to take advantage. Both of which I would likely be doing. Which I am doing…  
I look away from her, staring down at my tennis shoe clad feet and instantly regret my personalizing this between us. It was already clear that there is chemistry and magnetism here, but now I have made it worse. I have taken away from the professionalism of our arrangement and to be honest I am unsure if I ever wish it to go back to the way it was. Something that is far more dangerous in itself.  
“May we sing another?”  
I blink down at her, my mind rising as a phoenix from the ashes of broken thoughts and I feel a melody rise to my lips unbidden. A questing of my heart wishing for Charlene’s voice to sing the inner workings of my thoughts. It feels wrong not to ask it of her. To simply see how she might sound on the soprano notes of the melody and I nod simply at her, adjusting on the keys until I am at the starting pitches I hope she will catch onto quickly, “If I play you a melody I have written, will you catch on quickly?”  
“I could try…”  
I point to the scribbled pages in front of us, “If you can read what I hashed out earlier today, then it might help you.”  
“Are you sure you want me to sing one of your pieces?”  
“Quite,” I exhale sharply, nearly driven mad at the prospect of hearing her voice grace over the song. It is the strangest need. The most peculiar raging need and I find I can hardly find the patience to wait for her to ready herself. But when she does manage to stumble her way through it, then perfect it, I am lost in the sound of it. Violins burst into song behind her and they join me at the piano. I can hear the French horns and cellos rise above the rest of the orchestra to support her and I can feel my hands are trembling, my chest rising and falling in tandem to the ricochet of my heart.   
“Your music is so beautiful.”  
I can do little else save stare at Charlene and I blink several times to clear her image as the haze of black staffs and measures fade from my mind in painstaking slowness, “You must always sing it then. None are more worthy.”  
She laughs at me as though I’ve told a joke and I look away as to not let her see the heat of the flush creeping up my neck and staining my cheeks. I am quite serious. I did not know it until this moment. But I will be undone if she is not able to sing my music again. It is as though I have been writing music for her my entire life and it is only now I have found my soloist to whom I was writing. It is a pathetically desperate sensation and I find it puts me in a most foul mood.   
“I’m afraid I need to be going.”  
“So soon?” Charlene stands as I do, one hand catching mine, sending electrical tickles up my arm and into my shoulder.   
“Yes.”  
I give her my back, smoothing damp palms down my shirt as I move towards the exit. In a matter of weeks, I am losing all of the little control I had. I am crumbling into little pieces and this woman…Charlene, is the only woman who will be able to mend me. And she has no idea the power or control she now bears over me. I hate it. And I am madly in love with it. Both entities war within me for control.   
“Edmond…”  
I glance over my shoulder to offer her a level look, but fail entirely when her skin looks flushed and her hair as copper and gold in the drench of the hearth. I daresay I’ve never felt more attracted or tempted by any.   
“Another time Charlene…I need…Let’s just do this another time. I will call you.”

 

***

I have left Charlene alone for a week. Not seen her, called her, or even dared to drop by an opera rehearsal. Something I might be doing now.  
And it has been a horrendous punishment to myself.   
I stare blindly through the windshield of my sedan. It is not as late as I prefer to leave my house, but I find that even I have limits and I reached mine sometime after my early dinner. I was seated at the length of my freshly polished dining table, my thoughts drifting between what I would be teaching in the morning and whether or not I might be able to fall asleep early or if I might benefit from an hour in my gym, when the limit had come to a blinding edge.  
I should have had to stop myself from going back to my music room. Should have had the debate on whether or not to call it quits and sleep or stay up another handful of minutes likely to become hours to finish a song. But there was no inclination. There has been none. And I finally see it for what it is.   
Without Charlene, I have been cut off from my music. As if having found the source point for such emotions, in the very same breath, I have also found the end of it.   
Tightening my hands on the steering wheel, I ignore the urge to speed and focus my energy on recalling the song I just composed scarcely a week ago. It feels hazy and dim, nonexistent in my mind until I conjure Charlene’s voice into the space of me which has belonged solely to music previous. There, she stands amidst the chaos of it, her sapphire eyes so light and beautiful that I am shocked to find I wish her to stay.   
In fact, it feels nearly right, nearly too good to have her here inside this excruciatingly private place of myself and I find my mouth tugging into a smile at the prospect of breaking my fast. I am a starved man, in desperate need of a connection and though it chafes me to realize I must go to someone else to get it, I know it will be impossible to deny it.  
I pray Charlene is not too angry with me, but there is little hope of that. She has called me every day and I have ignored her with gusto. But I’ve needed to think. To understand and put myself to rights with what has been happening to me and it is only now that I feel myself returning.   
Parking in the nearest entrance to the back lot of the auditorium, I time my entrance near the end of rehearsal before slipping into the back door with my set of keys. Rarely do I encroach upon the staff with my authority, but this day, I find the benefit worth the risk of being seen. It is not as though it has not happened before. I simply prefer to stay away.  
Upon my entrance, the sound of guileless music blossoms in waves all around me at once and I savor it a moment, forgetting to care that the twinge of those not quite on key prickles in my awareness. I can hear her. Charlene.   
Though I must strain to hear the soprano above the rest, I can find her voice as if it is a beacon and I savor each note. Though the song seems to end too soon, the rehearsal is deemed over and I remain in my place behind the thick drapes of curtain until I am certain that Charlene is leaving too.   
I wait through the throng of college students, their faces weary, exhaustion clinging to them as a second skin until blessedly I see Charlene’s face pass my hiding spot. I don’t think through what I’m about to do, or why, I simply move and block her path.   
Charlene

“Edmond! My gosh!” I clutch a hand to my chest, my heart splitting painfully against my rib cage and I clench my jaw to keep the curse where it belongs.   
Edmond is the last person I expect to see here.  
He stands not a foot from me, hands loose at his sides, eyes expectant but guarded and I wonder what he thinks I might do. Why he looks as though he is bracing for an attack? It is quite clear that he is unsure of himself, something I’d also never thought to see in man as confident as he and I feel strangely forgiving this night. Even if he has been avoiding me for the last week.   
I cannot help that my heart aches at the sight of him or that I have missed him greatly. It is simply impossible to deter such uncontrollable emotions.   
“How was rehearsal?”  
I blink at him, eyes automatically taking in his height, broad shoulders capped in a blazer and the length of his legs shrouded in slacks. His mask looks particularly forbidding in this light and it is not hard to see how he might appear frightening upon first glance. A second glance would easily highlight his sharp cheek bones, clean jaw and warm brown eyes. But many would not allow a second glance. Fortunately, I am not many.   
“It went well. Considering. We have time to perfect things.”  
“No one can be perfect.”  
I feel a flicker of a smile touch my lips and I shake my head, “If you are trying to allude that you are not perfect Edmond, I was already well aware of that. Regardless of how you present yourself.”  
He appears to blanch at this boldness from me and I merely ignore it, moving towards the stage exit that glows in red hues. He cannot think me so weak as to easily forgive him even if I am holding back the desire to beg him to take me back. It is truly pathetic. Something nearly wrong about the way I am with him.  
“I didn’t realize I presented myself that way to you.”  
I frown at him, catching the distinct note of disappointment clinging to his voice, “I don’t believe you try to.”  
When he says nothing else but continues to follow me to my car in the now abandoned parking lot, I find my curiosity and patience dwindling. In truth, I am very pleased to see him. Even more so that he has come to seek me out. But I am also sure I should be agitated with him for having snubbed me so easily. I have thought of little else save him and I doubt that to be the same for him.   
“Why exactly are you here?”  
His lips press into a line, hands moving to his pockets as if to keep from fidgeting. “I don’t do apologetic well.”  
“Perhaps you merely need practice…” at his raised brows, I smile softly, “Go ahead.”  
He shakes his head, face tipping to the darkened sky above as if he is far too exasperated with me to try but then he is gazing at me in his darkly intense way. As if no space exists between us, though clearly there is a good two feet and I feel my lungs seize.   
“Je m'en excuse, Charlene. Pardonne-moi.”  
Edmond’s voice emerges in a hushed whisper and I know that perhaps he did not mean to speak to me in French rather than English but I find I do not have trouble understand his meaning. In fact, gooseflesh has risen on my arms and I feel my skin heat unbearably as he watches me a moment more before straightening. I hadn’t realized he’d leaned closer to me.   
“You are forgiven.”  
His smile is warm, shy even and I shake my head at him. Amazed that he can be so very predatorial and mysterious one moment, then shy and nervous the next.   
“You understand a bit of French now?”  
I flush tomato as I look down at my sandaled feet, “I decided to brush up on my high school French. I don’t really remember a whole lot but I can pick out an apology when I hear one.”  
“Oui, Mademoiselle,” he murmurs, eyes lightening to cinnamon, “I should probably let you go now. It is getting late.”  
I glance down at my watch, noting the time has been lost on me. It is nearing ten and Edmond is very right. I will see him first thing in the morning for his exam. One I had little time to study for.   
“I suppose you are right,” I pause to study him again, my heart feeling more in my throat than in my chest. Now more than ever, I wish I could peel his mask from his face, see what he is hiding so carefully from the world but I can sense it would be a grave mistake to do so and so I simply picture the black porcelain gone. I try to imagine his face whole and smiling, his lips tugged into his usual taunting smile but can’t quite get the image to materialize.   
“Sleep well Charlene. You have a big exam in the morning.”  
I roll my eyes at his taunt, “I’m well aware Professor.”  
He shakes his head, “Edmond to you Charlene. It will always be Edmond.”  
Something about the way he corrects me makes my stomach clench with child-like butterflies and I smile as I turn to the familiar coup at my back. I am very nearly excited for school in the morning. Nearly.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Edmond_ **

****

_I can’t come tonight. I’m sick. Sorry E._

            I stare at the miniscule script, half tempted to break down and use my reading glasses in case I am wrong of Charlene’s text message but know it will be of no use. She has never missed a rehearsal without proper cause. In fact, this will be her first cancelled on her part. Over the last two months, it has merely been my schedule that has prevented our meeting. But tonight…I wished to see her even more than usual.

            Perhaps it is merely that fall is descending over the grounds and my view has a perfect picture of autumn of which to study and I’d hoped to sing with Charlene before it. Or that she needs to advance in her range of vocal scaling. It might even be that she had asked to go over her music for the opera, as she is singing the first part in the flower duet. But it is more likely that I am falling in love with her.

            Dear Lord…I drop the cell phone, pressing a trembling hand to my thigh to stop the tremor there.

            Dare I ever tell her? I frown, clenching my jaw to keep nausea within my stomach from peaking. I don’t know if I could bear her scorn. Or her fear when I would undoubtedly be forced to show her my deformity. A hideous apparition that scars me from hairline to near jawline on my right side. No person, not my parents, not even my guardian could stand it.

            I touch the edges of the mask, allowing my fingertips to curl over it and just play at the edges of the marks. They feel as horrendous as they did a score of years ago. Though I try not to spend time in front of my mirror staring in abject horror at it, there are times, such as now, where I am lost in myself. Lost in a bit of misery with my prospects as loneliness presses in on me. As does my past.

            Such a heavy weight that threatens to crush me.

            Not this night. If I can help it, mayhap not ever.

            I banish thoughts of Paris and a home that I wish to never remember and instead find my feet moving across the floor of my study to my discarded sweater. It appears I cannot seem to stay away.

 

**Charlene**

I cough deeply, feeling the shred of air work its path down my lungs and into my belly once again and when I rise for my first breath of full air I feel lightheaded. Leaning back into my pillows, I feel my eyes trailing back to my cell phone in hungry appraisal.

            There is no message from him yet. Though, he’s never been much for texting. Perhaps I should have called instead?

            A hard knock on my front door alerts me to a visitor and I startle out of my worried circling thoughts. Surely whoever it is can see themselves to the building’s exit. I settle deeper into my covers, huddling until the scant bit of lighting left to my room appears half faded in peach tones. Drowsiness instantly clings to me and I wonder if I might sleep even better with a dose of Nyquil to help aid my cough.

            Another round of knocking tugs me back from the edges of sleep and I scowl at my closed bedroom door, half tempted to yell at it. Though my voice sounds more like a seal than a human.

            When the knocker appears to be too persistent to take a hint, I growl, rolling sideways to amble out of bed. My head protests the action violently and sends my heart throbbing through my skull. It only aids in my souring mood.

            By the time I have reached the door, I am very ready to give this interrupting fool a piece of my mind. Throwing the door back, I stare stupidly at my guest and do nothing to cover my boxer shorts and tank top with my gaping robe.

            “What are you doing here?” I sound like a squeaky rat high on steroids. I likely look it too.

            Edmond darkens my door as an exquisite wraith. Jet black hair slightly curling in front as if it just dried from a shower, onyx mask tarnishing the beauty of a face that I have memorized in detail.

            “May I come in?”

            Though I am still gaping at him, my weakness and headache suddenly absent under the pressure of adrenaline screaming through me, I automatically step back and gesture his entrance. But the moment he enters my little apartment I feel it a vast mistake. He feels so very large and out of place here beside me.

            “When you said you were sick, I thought to bring you some soup…”

            I blink up at him, eyes finally catching on his navy blue sweater and jeans. His hands wrapped about a common place and yet so out of place bowl of saran wrapped something. I know that I stare too long, that my eyes are far too probing and that they seem to hold on his for an eternity, but I cannot say I have ever been more surprised with him than this moment. This sweet and vulnerable moment where he is standing before me with a bowl of soup in my miniscule apartment because he was worried over my health.

              My throat tightens inexplicably at the emotion clogging it and I have to look down suddenly to hide the tears that rush over my eyes. It has been a very long time since someone has cared for me. Far too long.

            “That was very kind of you.”

            Edmond shifts, his knuckles going white on the dish. “Should I not have come? Have I upset you?”

            “No,” I blink, forcing my eyes to his though they will be far too telling, “No. It’s just been a long time since someone has cared for me as you are. You’ve warmed me.”

            “Oh,” he looks down, his cheeks going bright with color and I think it might be the first time I have seen Edmond blush.

            There is always a first time for everything. Feeling a heavy wave of exhaustion hit me, I nod at my kitchen and take a seat on the sofa as casually as possible. “Why don’t you stay and have that with me? There are bowls in my cabinet by the sink.”

            “You’re sure you want company?”

            “We spend so much time together as of late, you are hardly company.”

            He quirks a brow at me before doing as I ask and I feel my stomach bottom out hideously. I am not nearly as confident of myself as I try to be. What is more, I feel so weak and frail that I am uncertain of my abilities to hold up a conversation with Edmond, let alone eat mannerly in my boxer shorts and robe before him.

            As my apartment is so very small, I can study Edmond’s movements in my kitchen with ease from my position and I do so humorously. The kitchen appears to be a doll’s size with his height and there is little to deter this as he hunts down my spoons, two bowls and two glasses of water. I don’t realize I am holding my breath until he rejoins me on the sofa and takes the seat beside me with a flourish of his hand procuring my soup.

            “Is it homemade?”

            He smiles, “I wish I were as gifted in that arena. But no.”

            I nod politely, dipping my face to inhale the aroma of parsley and chicken. It smells fragrant and very edible though I had thought to sleep without any supper. I find my stomach near cramping with hunger at the prospect of eating now. Grateful, I eat my soup slowly, watching Edmond cautiously over the edge of my yellow bowl, praying that he does not find me as pitiful as I feel.

            Unsurprisingly, he is silent until we have both finished our meals and I am stretched back onto the sofa’s arm, my feet propped on the edge of the coffee table. I am immensely pleased that I had the energy to clean my flat the day previous, else this table would have been buried under manuscripts and laundry that needed folding. I try not to envision the horror of having Edmond seated before a pile of my underwear and bras.

            “Edmond,” I murmur, aware I sound sleepy and unable to hide it. His soup has found just the spot and I feel rather comfortable with Edmond’s warmth near enough I can feel it touching me and as my couch tries to swallow me.

            “Yes?”

            His voice seems closer and I narrow my gaze at him, finding that he did move and is in fact leaning back into my sofa, his feet now beside mine on the coffee table. I force my gaze to his shoes and am not surprised to find they look expensive. Some sort of a loafer in dark brown leather.

            “Do you ever see my lessons ending with you?”

            I’m not sure why I ask it, but I wish to know nonetheless. He is silent a moment and I realize there is a real threat in my question, one that has chafed at me for weeks now. If there is an endpoint, will he still wish to see me? Does his concern for my welfare translate into a liking of my person? Enough to see me intimately? I look to the curve of his jaw and the strong muscles of his throat and I am haunted by what his face must look like without the elegance of the black mask. I burn to reveal him fully but fear what might hide beneath it.

            Do _I_ want to know him as man and not simply my friend? To be more to him than this simplistic connection we share? In truth, I am not certain of anything. Most especially Edmond.

            “I can’t say you will ever achieve perfection Charlene….so until that day comes, I would hope to continue lessons with you.”

            I smile at his careful words and prop my head onto the crook of my arm to study him. His face is mere inches away and I can smell his aftershave, something woodsy and wild combined with the studious scent of crisp ink and paper. It is something that I have grown incredibly fond of and if I were so bold, I would dip my nose to his neck and inhale deeper of it to send me off to sleep.

            “You must like me very much then. I might even get tired of me with so many lessons.”

            He tips his chin, looking down at our hands which are slack objects between us and I near stiffen in panic when his knuckles brush mine. Not in some accidental touch, but in a purposeful testing. Edmond’s jaw clenches, his lips thinning to a tight line. “I do like you, Charlene.”

            “You’ve said that before,” I counter, aware my voice sounds reedier than it did upon his entrance here. My heart sounds an alarm in my ears, threatening my undoing and I blink several times when Edmond’s gaze rises to meet mine, the color looking as rich mocha.

            “I cannot quite describe how I feel now, but it is something a bit more than liking you.”

            I swallow stiffly, “What are trying to say Edmond?”

            Somehow his fingers have found mine and I realize they are holding there, not quite hovering but not wrapping either. They stay in place over mine, heating my knuckles with his touch and they feel heavy as lead and light as kisses just the same.

            “Merely that I…” he blinks at me, eyes falling all of the sudden to the gray fabric of the sofa, “I care very deeply for your welfare and happiness. As much as any other good friend might.”

            Something smacking of disappointment blooms in my belly and I stifle the urge to lean closer and beg him to be truthful. I have been equally aware of this change between us, though I fear it immensely as I am unsure of what to do about it. Or him. Not for the first time, I find my mind scrambling about the reasons for and against such a connection and it causes a wave of pain to lance my middle. Edmond is a man that will be difficult to love. Not only for his temper and passion which gets the better of him, but for his obvious aversion to being in public. His deformity or scarring or whatever happens to be hidden beneath the mask prevents him from normal living. Something he has never spoken to me of, except to vaguely mention. Though it is clear to me that Edmond is a wounded soul…whether or not I am willing to risk myself in order to love him…I am feeling less and less able to argue.

            But I must, else I might find myself even more desperate to be nearer him than I already do.

            Though I know I shouldn’t ask and most certainly shouldn’t push him, tonight of all nights when I am not up to the task of arguing, I still find the words tumbling out of me. The honesty burning my tongue in the wake of questions I’m not sure I want answered.

            “Is that all you are to me Edmond? A dear friend?”

            He is suddenly very still. An animal caught in a trap or a terrified heart left exposed and naked. I feel his insecurity as a filmy specter between us and I find it distracting to my already throbbing heart.     

            “Is that all you want me to be?”

            I don’t have a tidy response for him but I cannot back down now. “I’m not sure.”

            Edmond nods slowly, his hand moving off of mine as if this is the answer he expected. But I shake my head, doing something far out of my comfort to retake his hand in mine. He stares at me a moment, eyes wide and dark, skin reddening prettily in splashes along his cheek bone and I force a shaky smile to my lips.

            “Friends hold hands, don’t they?”

            He blinks several more times at me, eyes luminous and unsure, “I…”

            “They do,” I insist, embarrassed at my actions now that I’ve done them, but unable to go back now. If nothing else, I am supremely stubborn, a character flaw that I happen to share with Edmond. Silence stretches as a gaping yawn between us and I am very much relieved when he finally breaks it.

            “You passed my midterm, by the way.”

            I have already tipped my head back and am staring at the ceiling but I can hear a smile in his voice. A small slackening of stress from his fingers in mine, and it helps to loosen the knots from my own shoulders. “I thought so.”

            “It appears your studying paid off.”

            I quirk a brow, “I had great motivation to do so.”

            He grimaces as if he is recalling my previous test of which I managed to hedge with a flat C. I’d panicked before his midterm and studied until I couldn’t read straight. But I had studied out of pure survival, not a desire to impress him.

            “I’m afraid I grade rather harshly.”

            “You do many things rather harshly, but that doesn’t make them wrong. There is no need to feel badly.”

            Edmond’s chuckle is soft but I find it welcome as it lightens our conversation considerably and somehow my mood. I still feel rather weak and poor, but if every night could end with Edmond’s laugh, than it would be a good life.

            “Indeed.”

            “You like that word a lot.”

            He smirks at me, cocking his head as if we play a great game, “I thought you might say that. It is why I used it.”

            “You baited me?”

            Edmond’s lips twitch in a second smile and I feel his fingers tighten on mine, “Indeed.”

            Unable to stop it, I laugh but am quickly overtaken by a coughing fit that tears through the back of throat in painful scrapes. Gritting my teeth at the last of it, I fumble for my drink and am rewarded with a mouthful of cool water to settle the burn.

            “You need rest Charlene. Let me help you to bed.”

            At first I think the idea absurd that I need help to find my bed, but then the temptation of having Edmond within my bedroom is hardly fair and I give in silently as he helps me to stand. Guiding me as an infirmed patient, I allow his hand to find my lower back without much shock and we walk the pitiful three feet to the open doorway of my room. My bed is in shambles, a cacophony of sheets and twisted comforter but I find it hard to care. Edmond doesn’t appear bothered by the lack of cleanliness either because he moves to pull back my blankets and gestures with his hand for me to climb in.

            I feel like a little child obeying him, particularly as he bends over me to tuck me in but this is no father tucking me in. Not when his hands linger on my sides and one palm moves to rest on the curve of my forehead as if he cannot help himself this bit of intimacy. I flame when my gaze drops to his lips and I am struck with how lovely his mouth is. It would be perfectly horrible if he knew my thoughts and I am grateful for the little things due me.  

            “You are quite warm.”

            “I’ve been running a fever off and on,” I sigh, snuggling deeper as he runs his thumb over my hairline, eyes tracing the movement.

            “We will cancel the rest of your rehearsals this week. Hopefully by Monday you will be feeling better.”

            I smile up at him, the warmth spreading over my cheeks dipping to my throat and likely turning my chest just as crimson, as his eyes hold mine far longer than a friend might. Am I fooling myself into thinking I might ever resist him? Resist this dark passionate want that curls in my middle and reminds me of the handsome soul that lurks above me?

            Perhaps it is that there is something so very dark about him. Something that both attracts and repels me in its intensity as it hints at stories and secrets he would never wish me to know. Perhaps that is why my heart is slamming into my ribs near painfully in response to him with not just simple desire, but fear. Two opposing forces that cannot exist at the same time. Not for long anyways.

            Blinking, he straightens and I miss his touch immediately as his hand withdraws from my face. “Rest. Regain your strength and please keep me informed.”

            “Of course,” I rasp, nodding gently. When he turns to leave and his shoulders are filling my doorway, I give into the urge I have been fighting since he walked me in here and sigh his name, “Edmond…”

            Brandy eyes find mine and I take in a shallow breath to quell my uncertainty. I think I have never wanted something as much as I want him. “You can come over again you know. When I am not ill I mean.”

            “Another thing that friends do?” He offers, though his voice does not sound joking in the least.

            I blink at him, “Yes.”

            “Would you like me to come by again Charlene? To spend time with you?”

            I am not sure how he manages to slice through my words and pluck the meat of it so easily or to pose it in a way that will make me admit I wish more of him, but he does. And I am helpless to deny it. I do want more. Endless amounts more.

            “Yes,” my voice sounds choked coming out and I fight a rash of ridiculous nerves again at his silent perusal of me.

            “Then I will come. Sleep mon coeur.”

            I frown, “What does that mean?”

            He smiles, “Perhaps one day I will tell you.”

            “You cannot always get away with saying things in French to me you know, Edmond.”

            He shakes his head, mischief sparking in his gaze as he moves to close the door behind him, “Peut-être. But that time is not now, is it?”

            I roll my eyes, but he is already closing the door and if I am not mistaken I can hear the sound of his chuckle through the wood separating us. I find I am both comforted by it and put in a state of unease. The man is a walking contradiction.

 

**_Edmond_ **

****

            “Everyone, gather around.”

            I feel my gaze torn from Charlene’s back to the conductor and I watch in bemusement as the little man marches to center stage to finish his announcement. The announcement I have driven all the way to campus for.

            Though I have chosen to remain in the shadows, I am well aware that my presence here draws attention immensely and I can feel the eyes of several other staff members on the back of my neck.

            “We have just received a new patron, a benefactor who has chosen to take on the entire responsibility of the intermountain opera’s annual spending budget.”

             A round of applause breaks out among staff and students and I oblige with much of the same. Though, I am hardly curious about the new benefactor. I’ve never taken much interest in the money side of the college, but this is one of my duties as a senior staff member. After all, it is technically my opera of which these grand students including Christine sing in. I am director of the opera and all major decisions go through me. So it was not a difficult decision when the financial committee and the college dean spoke to me about this latest patron.

            The conductor smiles widely, his bristling mane of white and gray curls bouncing as he bobs his head, “Please let me introduce you to Rory Milan.”

            Several more people applaud and I feel my eyes suddenly glued to Charlene’s expression of shock as it ripples down her pretty features. Though she is wearing a simple blouse and khakis, I find my heart lifting at merely the sight of her. She has grown more beautiful in the last weeks than any I’ve laid eyes upon. And I am hopelessly fallen for her.

            The man, Rory, strides across the stage as a someone of confidence and good breeding. He appears fairly young, well-built and bright as a summer sun. His eyes are nearly the color of Charlene’s and I feel my hands tighten into fists when I see her expression fade into a smile as she is looking at him. Does she know him?

            A foolish jealous twinge within my chest prays not and I stifle it immediately as I force my gaze back to Rory. The man appears friendly enough, perhaps even a good man. He does not deserve my ire so callously brought on by my naturally suspicious nature.

            I watch another moment, wishing I could steal Charlene away a moment to see her, but know I cannot. It is best that I leave now before the opera rehearsal is finished and the students flood the lot. I wish to be gone far before they can see me too. I cast my gaze once more in her direction, hope she is well and then split the other faculty at my back with a swift exit. It nearly makes me laugh how quickly they scatter away from me as though I am a pestilence rather than a man. It is a good reminder of who and what exactly I am. Charlene has been making me forget far too often.

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “You don’t think he would recognize you now Char?”

            I shake my head, eyes finally breaking from the man I had never thought to see again and smile sadly, “No. Rory and I were just children when we parted. He would have nothing to remember me by now. It was too many years ago.”

            Mel, one of the ballerina’s in the show that I have befriended, studies me a moment then shakes her head, “I think he might. I’d risk it for a face as handsome as his.”

            I laugh, “Well he is handsome.”

            “Very much so. Go and speak to him.”

            “I don’t think it’s a good idea…really.”

            Just as I am considering this outlandish idea, a raw scream splits the air, something as piercing as if a child had shredded its vocal chords and I clap both my hands over my ears at the shrillness of it. Swiveling, I see the opera’s lead, Constance bent over on the floor holding her ankle as though there has been the most grievous of injuries to it. There is no lack of compassion, though we all know Constance to be a dramatic floozy and we circle about her obligingly to assess the damage done her.

            “My leg. I think its broken. There is no way I can sing now!” she sticks out her bottom lip even better than some two year-olds I’ve seen and presses a hand to her forehead as though she might faint, “It was that ridiculous opera ghost.”

            I blink at her, unsure if I heard her correctly but find that everyone in the circle of singers is absurdly silent and rather believing of her story. Frowning, I glance down at her ankle and see it is swollen and angry though I cannot ever picture an incorporeal thing doing such damage.

            “How did it happen?” the conductor asks politely.

            Constance takes a moment, her eyes filling with tears, “The landscape screen fell on me.”

            I feel my gaze torn to the landscaping tarp and find that it is in fact lying on the floor quite near where Constance was standing. Although I don’t particularly recall ever hearing it collapse or seeing anyone in the catwalks to release the ropes. It causes a chill to rush over my arms and I startle when I catch the faint outline of a man lurking in the shadows of the backstage wearing a half mask of feverish obsidian. His eyes look dark as sin, lips frowning with brows drawn low and it takes me a moment to recognize this frightening creature as Edmond.

            “Mr. Leroux…” the conductor gestures at him, “Would you speak with me a moment sir?”

            I try not to stare, to feed the buzz of whispers at the mention of the infamous and mysterious Mr. Leroux, but fail entirely when he emerges from the shadows and moves to stand offstage to speak with the conductor. I had not realized he took such a personal level of control with the opera and I am suddenly feeling left out of the loop entirely with him. Edmond had never told me that it was not just that he did all the auditions. It was clear by the stiffening of the other staff still lingering by the door, as well as Rory’s questing eyes, that he ran this entire operation as its captain. It should not surprise me, but it does. Likely because I had thought that Edmond would have told me by now.

            When their conversation ends and Edmond strides back offstage and disappears into the darkness, I am struck horribly with a sense of forlorn injustice. I wanted to speak with him a moment as well, but it appears that time must wait.

            “Constance, it is clear you cannot perform and since we have our first performance tomorrow evening, we will be forced to replace you.”

            A rush of murmurs blankets the air and I feel a tightness fill my chest as the conductor’s eyes are roaming the crowd of students, his lips pulled tight beneath his mustache. “Miss Darlington?”

            I blink at him, unable to speak a moment until Mel shoves at me.

            “Yes?”

            He nods with relief, “Ah yes. Miss Darlington. I have been informed by Mr. Leroux that he wishes you to sing the lead tomorrow evening.”

            A hush falls over my peers and I feel my face flaming cherry under their appraisal and perhaps disapproval of his choice.

            “But…” Constance’s lips tremble, “I am to be replaced?”

            “For now. But that may not be permanent. As for Mr. Leroux’s choice, I never argue with the director. He does things his way. I’m sure you will do wonderfully tomorrow Miss Darlington,” he nods supportively, “Now, since we will be forced to perform in this fashion, let’s get back to stage positions and run through this again. As quickly as possible. Audience sees us tomorrow.”

            I am still too shocked to comprehend the gravity of what has just happened but I find my legs know where to go to perform the opening song as lead and I grasp onto this newfound hope with a desperate strength.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**_Edmond_ **

****

            There are moments, mere moments until I will hear Charlene sing and I sit on the edge of my seat, the audience beneath my opera box hushing in anticipation. There is a strange settling that happens in my middle, a dark twisting of rightness as I anticipate hearing the soprano opening and I do my best to stay seated. Though I am quite tempted to sneak through the stagehand exit in the box so I might see her from behind the iron of the velvet curtains.

            As the strings edge into blossoming music from the pit, I catch the bob of curls from the conductor and my breath catches in my throat. Curtains glide open with a gentle swish and with the ease of a well-seasoned prima, I am instantly captivated and warmed by Charlene’s voice. She is breathtaking. Quite literally and I struggle to understand what it is about her voice that has bewitched me so thoroughly. She has crystalline tone and the notes arc with ease as I have oft imagined them when she would wish me to go over her music.

            A heady mixture of pride, love and desire curls in my belly and I clutch the intricate railing painted in gold to keep my emotions in check. Even when she finishes and the staging changes, I am hopelessly lost in the music, my heart skipping and eyes burning from tears that wish purchase and I am horrifically embarrassed to find that I am singing along under my breath, the notes flowing from me without permission.

            Biting down hard, I stifle the music and suffer the barrage of notes inside my skull as I deny them freedom. As it always is, I feel my resolve dwindling by the end of the opera and I am sweating from the patience and strength it has taken to keep my mouth closed and my hands clasped in my lap. If any knew how truly enslaved I am by the musical imaginings and writings that come to me…they would think me mad.

            I nearly laugh at the lunacy of such thoughts. I think me mad.

            When the lights come on and the applause has finally died down, I unfold from the stiffness of my seat and find my spirits vastly improved at the prospect of seeing Charlene. I can hardly wait to see her reaction at the roses I have left in her dressing room. Or to congratulate her myself. After all of the hours and hard work together, I am more than impressed. I am and will likely always be, enamored.

            Taking the back door to the opera box, I seal myself inside the dark hallways and work my way through the house’s inner skeleton until I find the proper door. It will lead me straight out into the hall in front of Charlene’s room. Or at least I hope it will. It has been ages since I was foolish enough to traipse in the dark as some lingering rat in sewers here. It reminds me far too much of my days on the run France.

            Gooseflesh rises on my arms at the memories which come unbidden to mind and I think of the slightly rounded face that will be etched within me as a tattoo or handprint left to sizzle on flesh. He had looked so very cold and frightening beneath my hands, his lips curled back, spittle dribbling down his chin and I’d felt no remorse for what I’d done. No…I’d felt relief. Immense relief.

            Shaking myself, I tug at my tuxedo’s vest to straighten the fabric and stifle the rash of feelings that arise from the moist air that surrounds me. Paris is done. Gone. I am not that young man anymore and I will never be again.

            I am just at the door I wish to enter from when I hear the sound of excited words blur towards me from the muffled wall. Frowning, I concentrate a moment and realize that the voice I am listening to must be Charlene. But she is not alone.

            Swallowing stiffly, I do something I know I should not. It is not only rude and completely inappropriate, but would likely be offensive to Charlene. I myself would not appreciate the slip in privacy and yet, I find the shell of my ear pressing into the thin layer of plaster that separates me from them. Her and that man. Rory.

            I recognize his voice at once, particularly as he recites a child’s rhyme that makes Charlene laugh. I cringe, pressing hand to the wall to keep from fisting it and sending it through with a crush of bone. I know that my reaction is unsavory and that I’ve no rights to her…but I still feel the stifling flare of jealousy come from me in waves and I can do nothing but listen to Charlene reminiscence of a childhood spent with this other man and Rory speak of how well she did this evening. How entrancing her performance was. Something that I had made possible.

             I bite my tongue to keep from growling like some deranged animal until I taste blood and still my anger does not feel quenched. I know that I have a temper and I have always been careful to keep a cool control over it. But now, I feel not nearly strong enough. This woman, whom I have foolishly given my heart to clearly does not feel the same as I. She is flirting with another man. Is considering him.

            The sting of such goes straight to my core and I rest my feverishly warm skin against the plaster. Dust burns my eyes and I blink into the darkness, willing my heart to slow.

            I must go. Now. The longer I delay and hear, the worse this will be for me.

            Turning, I move back down the long corridor and end at the box’s exit ready to leave but find the opening impenetrable. Anxiety and nausea pool within me in equal parts as I come to a horrific realization. The only way I am getting out of here this night is through the door I have just left. Straight into Charlene’s dressing room.

            More distressed than angry now, I walk back the way I came and stop in nearly the same place. I hesitate, dreading what I might hear on the other side of the wall and listen for several moments before withdrawing. It is silent now.

            She must have gone with him.

            Flashes of what she might be doing. Rather, what this Rory Milan wishes to do with her come to mind and I curse lightly under my breath. My life is cursed. All of it. I might as well get used to my lot in life, for it will not be soon to change.

            Sighing, I take the doorknob, give a hard shove and then find myself standing abruptly behind Charlene who is seated in front of the mirror. She whirls around at my entrance and stares at me. Eyes wide in shock, skin pale and lips red as roses. I find that I am completely struck dumb and mute and I stand awkwardly, half tempted to run back into the corridor and pretend I have not barged in on her.

           

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “Edmond…” I blink several times, thinking to clear this otherworldly image of my instructor and friend from my eyes but find that he stays the same. Face struck in bashful and pale tones, mouth parting in a loss of words. The only thing about him that is as expected is the dark slash of the mask concealing his face, his roguishly handsome tuxedo and onyx hair styled appropriately to see an opera.

            “I…” he clears his throat, dusting the arms of his jacket absently. Little pieces of gray moats fall and I find my mouth curving into a smile though I am at a complete loss as to why and more importantly how he has appeared here from the middle of my dressing room wall.

            “You must have an explanation Edmond, don’t you?”

            He shrugs, lips going into a firm and mutinous line, “I must have picked the wrong door.”

            “You mean you didn’t know this was my dressing room,” I offer, moving to stand and in doing so showing a bit of my bare legs. I am still wearing my corset and though the robe I’ve wrapped about my middle covers most of me, I feel decidedly scantily clad.

            “I did.”

            I feel my pulse dip and then skid on at his quiet words and I realize he is looking beyond me to a pretty vase of yellow roses. “Rory Milan brought these for me.”

            Edmond’s chin dips, “Yes, I wasn’t aware you two were so well acquainted.”

            I blink at him, hearing something very dark and possessive find purchase in his voice, “How would you…were you listening to my conversation?”

            “I could scarcely pretend not to hear when I was just outside. I merely meant to sneak here without drawing so much attention to myself. I wasn’t intending to break your privacy.”

            I feel a sense of uneasiness flow over me at his candid confession and yet, I do not blame him. How could I? He is quite right. A house as packed as this would have likely drawn far too much attention to him and less to the actual performance. His discretion has saved me the limelight. And that is something I have been savoring since the moment I bowed on stage and received a thunderous applause. Even an encore was begged for. I’d never felt more alive than in that moment and I had wanted nothing more than to share it with Edmond.

            But then Rory had shown up at my dressing room with roses and he’d remembered me. Like some prince charming from a child’s book, I’d felt suddenly ridiculously lightheaded and excited in his presence. Utterly captivated by the light of blue in his eyes and the memories which I hold dear being renewed. He’d invited me to dinner. Made me feel precious and wanted with such ease that I hadn’t even thought of what Edmond might think. Now, I feel a wavering of guilt and shame wash over me.

            Why should I? I have already spoken to Edmond about how I am unsure of us.

            “You did well Charlene. I was very pleased with you.”

            Words feel thick in my throat when my gaze flutters to his and I see the sincere appreciation in the weight of his butterscotch gaze. His eyes hold mine easily, calling forth a torrent of feeling and want and I find that such excitement I’d felt with Rory only moments ago, pales in comparison to this sensation. With Rory, I feel I am his equal to some degree and so it is exciting to stand before him as merely a girl and know that he finds me pretty and wishes me. But with Edmond…he sees me as a woman and I cannot see him as a boy by any means. He is a man. A thickly muscled, demanding and captivating one that will ask for my soul if I were to open myself to him. And it is frightening realization to think I may wish to give it.

            “Will you come with me?”

            “Come with you?” I ask, sounding incredibly slow. I feel as though I am in a trance with Edmond, but I am helpless to stop it and I do nothing as he closes the distance between us until our toes are meeting.

            “Yes,” he whispers, “Just for a little while. I have thought of nothing else save this moment for the last hours and I wished to share it with you. To just…be with you.”

            In comparison to Rory’s offer to take me dinner there is an extremely appealing quality to the way Edmond asks me, the way his hand finds mine and his thumb grazes my knuckles in peaceful entreaty. I cannot say no. Not when I want what he does so badly. I am being ensnared by him once again and I find that I don’t care. Not this night when I am still high off of my victory. Rory will wait until another night and he will likely forgive this small rudeness.

            I nod at Edmond, feeling my stomach hollow as his mouth curves into a smile and his eyes warm to cinnamon. “Have you ever been beneath the opera house?”

            “Beneath it? No.”

            He laughs softly, pulling me behind him until we reach the door that still stands open to a dreary and frightening space that is dark and damp. It is no wonder that he arrived before me covered in dust and webs. This corridor resembles a terrifying rendition of the Cask of Amontillado. I wonder if there are skulls and bones walled into the plaster that surrounds us and I lean closer to Edmond as fear swells beneath my breastbone.

            “Stay close. I know it looks frightening, but it is quite safe.”

            “How do you know about this place?”

            He is silent a moment and I wonder if he will answer me at all. Then his voice emerges as a rich baritone and I feel safer with his fingers grasping mine. “I used to hide from the world down here. On very bad days, I would explore.”

            “I imagine you’ve had quite a few very bad days.”

            “Yes,” Edmond answers with a gentle squeeze of his hand and I reciprocate, more pleased than I can say to be with him now. Though I still second guess and fear my decision to do this, I cannot say I am not enjoying myself. For I most assuredly am.

            We stalk through the underbelly of the college’s opera house for quite a bit longer until we reach a set of manmade stairs that are slippery with dew. Taking them slowly, Edmond moves to support my back with a firm grasp and I melt into him, grateful for his help. But at the bottom he does not free me and I strangely don’t care that we remain very close. He feels warm and the air about us is dewy and chilled. It feels tragically dismal in this place and try to picture a younger Edmond, perhaps new to teaching hiding down in the depths of such a watery world.

            Edmond releases me for a moment, hands slipping from me and I go stiff as steel, my eyes quite blinded by the surrounding blackness.

            “I left a few candles down here I think. Let me light them.”

            I wait for what feels a ridiculous amount of time with my heart in my throat and then warm tangerine light spills out from several feet away and I feel my muscles relax at the sight. Edmond is standing beside what appears to be an iron candelabra and I smile, shaking my head. Of course he would have left an entire candelabra down here in the tomb of fog and darkness. Though this place is frightful, I think it very much suits him when he turns and the candle’s light flickers off of the blackness of his mask in forbidding shadows.

            He looks particularly predatorial when he approaches me again and I have to fight a shiver when our hands meet and he pulls me to his chest. I recognize that he is trying to keep me warm, that it is likely just a moment of friendly kindness, but my heart does not and I feel the tremble run up my arms and cling firmly to my lips.

            Unbidden, my gaze finds Edmond’s and I realize he is watching me too, his face so very near now it will take very little effort to kiss him and I realize that I wish him to kiss me. I want it very, very much.

            His breath tickles my cheeks, warms my chilled nose and I feel my eyes flutter closed when he moves closer still. Heat spreads deliciously through my belly and when his lips finally tentatively brush mine I lose all thought or care. He kisses me softly at first but I am near choked with my desire for more and I beg more of him, clinging to the lapels of his tuxedo jacket, pulling him tighter to me. He answers in kind, a soft groan breaking his mouth as his hands wind into my hair and I feel as though fire is licking over my skin.

            It is not my first kiss. But I am overcome with emotion and I find that I have never been kissed thusly before. And I never want another man to. Only Edmond.

            I don’t realize when my hands move to his face, or when Edmond is stiffening against me, his mouth breaking from mine as he begins to protest, but I am well aware of what I am doing when my fingers curve around the edge of his mask. I see the split second of panic wrench through Edmond’s eyes, the split second that I am too slow to stop what I am already doing and must do, but it is too late. I am already unmasking him, peeling his shield away without his permission and we both know it.

            Time seems to stand in a sickly still motion for several seconds as the mask comes off and I see Edmond Leroux for the first time. I stare with unabashed shock and dread as I see for the first time what he has kept so carefully hidden from me and I do not school my reaction. I do nothing but gape and Edmond responds accordingly. As any man might after having his soul bared nakedly with such a horrific response and he bellows into the mist, sounding more beast than man, giving me his back abruptly to cover his face with one hand.

            I still hold the mask and I stumble backwards at the volume of his cry.

            He curses, voice rising in violence until I realize I am trembling in true fear of him. Fear of what he might do to me for my impertinence. Regardless of the moment we shared, I have always been aware of this darkness beneath his skin and it is now that I see it for all its glory.

            “Damn you! Why Charlene?!”

            I stand mute, my lips numb and legs locked in terror.

            “You may flee now little girl! You’ve gotten what you wanted. A show! An unveiling of the creature that has fallen for you! Now leave me be!”

            I flinch at his words, tears springing to my eyes at not only the anger in him towards me but the pain behind such tortured statements. I have grievously wounded him. There is no going back from such a wrong and I regret my eagerness to part the boundaries between us. If anything, I have damaged our bond infernally. Perhaps irrevocably for us both.

            I cannot go back to when I did not know of Edmond’s disfigurement and I imagine neither can he. The hideous twist of scar ricochets in my mind as a teasing wisp of permanent memory and I close my eyes to steady my breathing. Whilst the one side of his face looks fairly handsome and has captivated me, I cannot lie and say that the other is not repugnant. It is that and more.

            Twisted flesh rises at the base of his left jaw, crawls over the bones and skin in a folding and hollowing manner until it climbs to his hairline where it looks as though it has been reluctant to end there. Its color had stood in garish displays of raw pinks and reds amidst the neutrality of his skin tone but I had never seen the likes of such a mark, most especially on a face. Though he covers it now with one trembling hand and I can see his shoulders rise and fall in rage, I am struck most hideously with a sound dose of reality. Yes, I’ve hurt him. But is it not better this way to know what I might face should I love this creature as he’s so blatantly stated he has fallen for me?

            “Edmond, please,” I whisper, feeling the cool hard edge of the obsidian mask that is still clutched in my grasp. I wish to give it back to him, but am too afraid to move any nearer.

            He turns on me anew, one hand still desperate to keep the marks from my vision but it is far too late for that and I swallow in disgust at the picture he makes. Shuddering I am forced to look down away from him and I feel his disappointment and pain in me as a visceral tear. I hate myself for this weakness, for this reaction to him, but what am I to do? Lie against my baser thoughts and force feelings that do not exist? I care deeply for Edmond…but enough to overcome a mark that will live with us the eternity of our lives should I choose him? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just need air, a moment to be away from him and to think. The kiss we shared has changed everything and his unveiling no less so. I need more than a handful of seconds to process this.

            “Please what Charlene?”

            When I flinch from his acidic tone, his eyes soften into sunset hues in the flicker of candlelight and it is as if I am to watch the return of Dr. Jekyll from Mr. Hyde before my very eyes. His shoulders fall slack, posture signaling a defeat I likely will never understand and he looks upon me as a man who is very much lost. I ache for him. For his lot in life and the sadness I have likely added. Though there was no way not to. I think that if he had revealed himself to me in his own time…I likely would have done just the same. Reacted with horror.

            I still battle at it, even with his fingers acting as a web between us and his lips tighten, “This fear that you have of me…do you believe love may come from it? Perhaps someday?”

            His honesty is unflinching, shameless and welcome but I have no good answer for him just as I was unsure of what my feelings were towards him that day in my apartment, they linger in wispy indecision just the same. More so now than ever. Though I desperately wish to reassure him…because I think I am already in love with him. But I dare not say such words to him. Such damning and unfair statements.

            “I don’t know.”

            We stare at each other, two souls, so very much alike in bodies that could not be more different and I take several tentative steps nearer him, though my stomach flutters in fear when his hand dips on the marks to test me. My eyes must have given him the proper indication of my still very present aversion to him, because Edmond jerks and clamps those beloved fingers back over the markings that are no fault of his.

            “Oh Charlene…” he whispers my name, his eyes filling with shame and sadness so acute that tears refill my eyes and I feel my hand lift the mask to him. Offering it back to him. I pray he sees it as a peace offering. As an attempt on my part to make up for what I have done.

            He accepts it carefully and I am shocked to see tears have glossed the ocher of his gaze to a mournful maple. Something that cuts me to the quick. I look away quickly, though this time for fear of what my heart wants. Him.

            “Come. We must be getting you back. They will miss you.”

            “Edmond, can we talk about this?”

            “What is there to speak of Charlene? You…have seen me as I am. And I cannot change that. There is nothing more to be done now.”

            I blink at the coldness of his tone, devoid of emotion so very quickly that I am reminded how little I do know of him. These past months in his company have taught me that what lies beneath Edmond Leroux is not merely the marks of a monster, but the marks of a man that are buried in secrets and loneliness. A loneliness I don’t blame him for being afraid to break, particularly after this night.

            I nod at him, accepting his hand with my heart in my throat. He is very right, there is nothing more to do at present. I must pray for answers and peace. Though I doubt either will be forthcoming.

           

**_Edmond_ **

****

            It has been two weeks since I have seen her. Two weeks where the halls of my home have been filled with piteously mournful refrains as I work myself into oblivion at the bench of my grand piano. Countless hours I have wasted on frivolous thoughts, wishes and daydreams of her coming to see me. But it is all for naught. She does not come and I do not go to her either. At least not now.

            I feel the tension between us even from the few miles our lives continue separately. We are two drifting entities that cannot meet for fear of combustion and at this point, I do not believe that combustion to be one of a beautiful nature.

            I rest my forehead on the slick tile of my bathroom shower and try not to think of Charlene’s expression when the mask had come off and naked air had touched my skin, but I cannot. I see her. Over and over, a waking nightmare where her eyes are shining cerulean touched with the blackness of terror and it is me she is frightened of. Me she cries in horror from, covers her mouth and stares at.

            I am brought right back to nearly twelve years ago. My eighteenth summer in Paris when I had just begun to work a night job as a janitor in order to raise money for school. I was desperate to make something of myself, to leave my guardian Albert Theroux behind as quickly as possible. He’d always been a very cruel man, one who begrudged my care immensely though he received monthly stipends from the orphanage he’d gained me through. I was considered an especially troublesome case, as I came with obvious debilitations and he never let me forget it. Not since I was taken in by him at the impressionable age of nine. The years previous I had known very little joy with my true parents.

            But I had proven too much for them as well. When I was eight, my mother had dropped me off on the front steps of the Orphelinat de Bras Affectueux, Loving Arm’s Orphanage it was not, and I never saw her again. She did not explain to me what was to happen. Or that she and my father had grown tired of parading their horrifying son around Paris. They had simply left me there with a small satchel and a handful of coins and lint in my pockets.

            Though I have no desire to ever lay eyes on either of them again, I do wonder after them occasionally. These rare moments of weakness are usually shredded into sizeable tatters when I think of Theroux and everything he made me. The anger I hold so close to my chest, is partly his doing and I know this. The pain that I wear just under my skin, the thinness of my heart that feels wafery and exhausted from use at the tender age of thirty…all of it I owe to a man I have long since killed in my memory as I did in that ramshackle home.

            Why am I thinking of him now? Why does he haunt me again and again?

            My eyes open to slits and I study the grout that looks dark as pitch with the white tiles and I allow the emotions to bleed from me with the sensation of far too hot of water that sluices down my spine.

            Is it better to be left alone in my misery so I cannot harm anyone, most especially Charlene? I know that I am truly the beast she claimed…but I don’t wish to be. I don’t ever wish to be him again, though he continues to rise and fall as a frothing tide within my mind and I abhor him. It. This personified anger.

            Crimson notes fall to the blackness in my chest and I savor them a moment, trilling my fingers on the tiles as though they are gracing an organ. I think I prefer the brassy pipes here, to the delicate rasp of piano chords, and lyrics flow to my lips like whiskey drenched honey. I savor them, tasting each note in my mouth before singing it.

            I tip my head back, eyes closed, face spraying in the shower’s jets and there is very little that can touch me here as my voice climbs in volume and pitch. Not Charlene’s disgust, not Theroux’s anger and malice, or even the world’s. I am simply a man singing with a gift given him by God until all that remains is my voice and a tiny slice of joy.

            Smiling, I step from the water as a languid cat, far too warm from my time spent in the shower but equally pleased to find I am finally tired enough to sleep. Something that has evaded me endlessly.

            I dress quickly, opting for casual nightwear, choosing a simple black t-shirt and a pair of lounge pants before slipping over to the confines of my mattress. I keep my room dark as pitch, the drapes are thick enough that were it day, I’d have no notion of it and I am very grateful for it as I collapse into the mattress.

            Just as sleep is about to find me, I hear the trilling tones of my cellphone and I lurch forward in bed, grasping the sheets in fistfuls. There are very few who have this number and I can think of only one person who might dare to call after ten. I blink into the murky darkness, fumbling weakly for the plastic touch of the phone until it is in hand.

            Breathless and strangely hopeful, I answer on the fourth ring, barely catching it before it goes to voicemail.

            “Leroux.”

            “Edmond?”

            It is as I thought. Charlene. Her voice brings me infinite pleasure and pain to hear and I feel my knuckles grip the plastic far too hard. It is only when she says my name again that I realize I am too long in replying.

            “Yes, Charlene,” I swallow stiffly, scrubbing a hand down my face to wipe away the sleep and alarm from my features, “Why are you calling me so late?”

            “I just got done with rehearsal. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was so late. I should have called in the morning.”

            “Yes probably,” I snap my mouth closed to keep the ire from spreading any further and taking a deep breath before continuing, “Forgive me Charlene, you caught me at a bad time. What can I do for you?”

            “I know this might sound impertinent, particularly after our last…meeting, but I wanted to see you Edmond. I…well I’m outside.”

            I jerk upwards, nearly dropping the cell phone to the mattress, “Right now? Good Lord, did you even think that through?”

            She goes silent on the phone and I castigate myself for being so harsh, too honest, “Forgive me again, I don’t know what has come over my manners, I’ll be right down to let you in.”

            “I didn’t mean to--.”

            “It’s too late,” I snap, “I’m already coming. Just stay there.”

            Else I lose my mind and patience entirely. I fear they are both a thin precipice, particularly as sleep clings to my features and I ache in near every place of my body. The length of my hot shower appears to have faded in its beneficence. Stalking through the darkened halls of my home, I do not bother to flip on any light switches as I have no notion if Charlene will even come in, but I have a moment of sheer panic when I realize I am coming to the door without my mask entirely. Snarling at myself more than anything, I halt in my personal music room and hunt through my desk a moment to pull out a spare. It fits as the other, thought it feels somehow too formal for this meeting with Charlene now. Especially when she already knows what is beneath it.

            When I have finally reached the front door, I am but a trembling teen and I force the nervousness inward until I can present myself more fluidly. When the door opens and she is standing on my front porch wearing a beige trench and holding an umbrella to save her auburn curls from the deluge, I stare openly and feel a heated blush steal up my neck as she does the same. I did not bother to change from my bedclothes and I wish I had now.

            “Please, come inside. The weather is far too frightful to have this conversation on my doorstep.”

            She obliges, though it is clear from her tourmaline gaze that she is just as nervous in my presence as she was the last time and I silently will the pain of it away. I never wished her fear. Her love yes, but never this. I despise it.

            When we reach my kitchen, a place Charlene has never been, I begin rummaging around the cupboards for teabags and mugs, mindlessly hoping that my silent task will slow my thundering heart.

            “I suppose you are wondering why I came.”

            I raise a brow at her, willing my gaze to hold hers. She looks pale as a doll, hair slightly damp but her eyes are a forgiving bright blue. Languid as they watch me at my task.

            “You said you wished to see me. But yes, of course I wonder why. It has been two weeks Charlene.”

            “You haven’t seemed to wish me here.”

            I scoff, “I could say the same of you. I did not think after our last encounter you wished me near you either.”

            “I cannot deny you are a friend to me Edmond. A dear one. And I have missed you.”

            I try not to react to the true emotion in her words, or the genuine notes of concern in her tone and instead move back to making tea, purposefully giving her my back.

            She sighs at my back and I am very tempted to turn around and study her again, to see what she sees. “I hear you have chosen me again for the lead in Rigoletto.”

            I stare at her a moment, well aware this fact has not been made known to the intermountain staff yet. Only the dean was told of my choice for the next selection and whom I chose to cast in it. It is not hard to guess how Charlene knows of it.

            “So I see you must still be speaking with Rory. Though not me these last weeks.”

            Pretty pink color rushes into her cheeks and she places a hand on the table she is sitting at as if to calm her words. I don’t feel nearly as in control of myself and I step closer to the table, nearly forgetting the teapot at my back and the half opened tea bags.

            “I have been. But it isn’t the way you think. We are old friends from childhood.”

            “I don’t believe that is all that Rory wishes of you.”

            She raises incredulous brows of copper at me, eyes flashing in anger, “Edmond you cannot insist that I not see any other man. Particularly when things between us are so unsettled.”

            I clench a hand on the lip of the table, grinding my teeth, “And how pray tell are we to settle things Charlene? It was very clear that my appearance is abhorrent to you! You wished to run from me after you callously tore the one thing I tried to keep from you away from me.”

            I feel guilt snake its way under my breastbone as I think of how that statement reeks of lies but will it away. That Edmond is dead. He died with Theroux and Charlene never needs to know of him.

             She opens her mouth then closes it, hands fisting on the table top, “I do not abhor your appearance I was merely frightened. Which you could hardly blame me for. It is unsettling. It is unseemly. But I am very sorry for having unmasked you the way I did. I wanted to see all of you and it hurt us both.”

            I feel a stiffness lodge its way into my throat, threatening to close it and I shake my head at her, “I believe you are mistaken mademoiselle, you hurt me far worse than I you. Je ne peux m'empêcher de qui je suis.”

She frowns at me, nose wrinkling in confusion and I realize that I have spoken in French rather than English. Something that I have not done in many, many years. I had not even realized it past my anger.

Correcting it, I inhale angrily and repeat myself, “I cannot help who I am!”

            “And I cannot help who I am Edmond. You had to know I would wish to see you. All of you!”

            I am leaning across the table, hands flattened on the table, my voice having risen and I know that I must be frightening her again because Charlene is pressed into the lines of her chair, her eyes wide and clear as a cloudless sky. “I wanted it to be when _I_ was ready Charlene! When I had more time for you to grow used to me. To…to…” I struggle to get the words out but then feel there is little point in hiding my feelings now, “To love me first. That is all I’ve wanted. For someone just to love me as I am. And you stole that chance from me and now we are at an impasse.”

Her lips are trembling and I can sense that there is a deep ripping that his happening between us. The weeks of friendship, the fire of our kiss is melting under this heavy weight that threatens to drown us and I feel suddenly hideously bitter. Angry. I toss a hand into the air, exasperation coloring my voice, “And now, you are running off to the first man who catches your fancy. This Rory.”

            She lifts her chin, pride winning over hurt and I welcome the anger. I feel such horrible pressure in my chest, pain in my heart that I wish she’d simply leave me now. I hadn’t counted on this explosive of a confrontation and I am not sure I am willing to do this now.

            “Rory is a good man.”

            “He is easy and safe. It is what attracts you to him but you and I both know that ease and comfort will only last so long.”

            Charlene’s eyes hold mine captive a moment and she sighs in defeat, shoulders falling from their taut position, “I cannot fight you anymore. Not tonight.”

            “That’s fine. I’m done anyways. You can leave whenever you’re ready.”

            I am already turning to leave, flee really, to the sanctity of my music room where I might escape and wrestle this piercing pain out of my center but she stops me with a hand on my bicep. It is the first time when our skin has touched so intimately outside of our kiss and even then, I had been the one touching her. Not the other way around. Flutters of apprehension and excitement fill me and I struggle to keep my breathing even as my heart drops into a breakneck pace. Charlene has not removed her hand and her fingers feel tight and unforgiving about my skin, but I wish more. I don’t think I ever want her to let go of me.

            “Edmond, please stay. Let me be with you this night without the anger. I’ve missed you greatly.”

            I swallow stiffly, eyes delving into hers that this close resemble an underwater grotto of magical descent. “You know I have missed you Charlene. But things are different now.”

            “Yes. They are. And I need time. But I cannot be away from you the whole of it.”

            I know her logic is flawed and that this will cost me spending any amount of time with her and yet, that is what I want more than anything. To be near her. To hear her sing again as I have missed it greatly.

            “I cannot wait forever for you Charlene.”

            “I won’t ask you to.”

            It is on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she will still see Rory too, if she will give him up for me but I find I already know the answer. She will not. I will be forsaken in the end and this entire mess will have been a mere whimsy for this woman, something of exploration and I her plaything but I find I cannot care. I cannot stop my heart from yearning for her. Even if she will never pick me. I am not the safe, the easy, or the right choice in any sort of standard. And I am sadly resigned to this.

            Taking her hand, I am silent as we walk the length of the hall in darkness until the shadowy glow of my bedroom comes into view. I don’t bother to explain that this place is sacred to me or that no other soul has seen it. I think it fairly obvious.

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “Why did you bring me here?” I ask quietly, my voice sounding thin and soft as the downy looking comforter tossed back. He’d been in bed when I’d called him. Had likely been sleeping. I look down at my tennis shoes and feel my heart plummet with it. Why have I come to torment him now? Particularly when it is not simply him with that will pay for such stupidity. I am seeing Rory now. I am with him…he has made his intentions clear enough and yet I am still here, coming to another man’s home in the wee hours of night simply because I miss Edmond.

            I dreadfully miss him. I would kneel before him and beg forgiveness for what I did beneath the opera house if I thought it would do any good, but I know our problems source much deeper than that. Much, much deeper.

            “I am tired Charlene. Very tired.”

            I look at the slope of Edmond’s shoulders, the attractive ruffled look of his soft black hair and feel my stomach knot in desire. He looks so very rugged standing before me in his black t-shirt and pajama pants, hands loose with chocolate eyes peering at me from behind his onyx mask. But I am also loath to admit that I can see the strain in his features. The dark smudge that can be seen beneath his exposed eye and I shrink in regret at having come.

            “I’ll go then.”

            “No,” he shakes his head, eyes holding on the bed a moment before speaking, “Come lay down with me.”

            I feel my brows shoot to my hairline and I take several steps back. “Edmond, that is far from appropriate.”

            I am surprised when he chuckles with a deep tone, his shoulders dropping further. “I am going to lie down because I can scarcely keep standing any longer. If you wish to speak with me then it might be prudent to do the same. I will go under the covers and you can stay on top, if it pleases you mon coeur.”

            Mon couer…my heart. I could scarcely be asked not to look what he’d called me up, but now that I know I find the sentiment heartbreaking. Likely because I wish to be his heart. I press a hand to the offending organ that leaps towards Edmond and begs for his touch and I nod slowly, though I know such closeness will only make my decision harder. Make it that much more difficult for me to say no to him. Though I of course know this to be the best thing for me.

            Rory is a respectable man whom I truly do care for. He is lighthearted and funny, wealthy and proper. Everything a woman could and should want.

            I walk to the other side of the bed and ignore the way my stomach drops as I remove my shoes and amble onto the comforter. He does as he said and slips beneath it, eyes briefly holding on mine before slipping closed.

            “Are you comfortable?”

            “Not really,” I admit, staring into the far end of his bedroom. There is a large desk at the end facing an eastern window. I imagine sunrise to be supreme from this view. Warm light would dance across the bed to naturally wake the inhabitant and it would be glorious. Blinking, I frown down at Edmond as I hear his breathing shift from a lightness of wakefulness to a deeper even cadence.

            “Edmond…”

            “Mmmm…”

            “I should be going. You’re tired and need your sleep anyways. I’m sorry to have bothered you tonight. But I’m glad we spoke a bit more.”

            “Charlene, please. Just stay. What could one night hurt beside me? It is late and I promise I am too tired for any untoward behavior.”

            I find my heart instantly betraying me with an affirmative excitement as my head staunchly refuses. There is great danger in doing what I want, but I find that it doesn’t seem to take much convincing, particularly as Edmond’s hand finds mine and rests in a heavy warmth atop the veins of my hand. He is hardly awake. Hardly paying attention to what he is doing and I briefly wonder if he would have offered such a rare thing as this if he’d been more lucid. But then I find that I don’t care. Not really.

            It is as it always appears to be with Edmond. I cannot say no.

            Nodding, I slip further into his mattress, facing him a moment as the brandy of his eyes warms to light whiskey then disappear behind his lids. His smile is soft, but it curves his mouth and I watch him for several minutes until sleep slackens his features altogether. Mouth slightly parted, any sign of stress gone beneath the boyish vulnerability that comes with sleep, he is exquisitely handsome. Though his mask is likely uncomfortable, I find I do not have the courage to remove it again. Not after the last time. I will never take that from him again.

            It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep beside him as I imagined it would. His breathing is even and lulling and before long and I am drifting into the recesses of sleep easily with Edmond’s hand still preciously atop mine. In this state where dreams and reality blur, I think that I would be happy to sleep beside Edmond every night, if only it were so easy and simple.

 

**_Rory_ **

****

            Charlene seems so distracted with me this day that I am second guessing my invitation to have lunch. Though, if I am being honest, this distance has been felt almost at the onset of our…relationship. I frown, running a hand over the fabric of the napkin I wear in my lap, trying to think of something to break the melancholy that clings to her.

            “You continue to be a raving success in the opera Char. And I hear nothing but good things about you in Rigoletto.”

            “Is that so?” she smiles absently, taking a long sip of the fresh water in her glass before levelling me with a pretty look. Her eyes are likely the most enchanting thing about her. That or her ravishing length of long auburn curls. I’m not sure which I love more, though it is likely that both will be my undoing. I am among the many who are enchanted by her and I think that I will most easily be possessed forever by her.

            “Yes. I’m rather fond of bragging about it when I explain that we are dating.”

            She blushes, hands flattening on the table cloth, “I wish you wouldn’t tell everyone we are an item.”

            “Aren’t we?” I ask openly, my brows knitting in confusion. Charlene has been this way with me for weeks and I feel suspicion claw at my gut as I try to think of the cause. She had been pleased to become reacquainted at the start, to rekindle our childhood fancies and I of course had been explicitly pleased. Now, I wonder if I was a bit premature in wishing something between us. There feels an impasse that I have had no hopes in passing and I don’t particularly like the sensation.

            “Yes,” she answers smoothly, lips tugging into a smile and it brings me the smallest bit of relief.

            I nod at her, taking a moment to sample my cod. It is light and buttery, just what this late autumn day needs to be perfect and I smile happily at Charlene. Though she appears to hesitate, she does reciprocate it and I feel my chest lighten even further.

            “I was wondering if I might come to see you perform this weekend at the opening?”

            Charlene stares at me a moment, eyes flitting down to the table in what could only be said as apprehension. “You don’t need to come on the opening night. I’m sure you are busy.”

            “Rubbish. I’ll be there. I’ve already reserved a box for myself.”

            “You have?” her eyes flit to mine in surprise and I reach across the white linen table cloth to cover her hand in my own.

            “I am quite serious about you Charlene. I hope you know that.”

            She smiles in soft reply and takes a bite of salad before responding. It makes the weight from earlier return to my chest and I wonder if she is hiding something from me. If there might be someone else who she has been spending time with? A name flits to my mind as the suspicion grows and I have to fist a hand under the table to keep from showing my irritation at the prospect.

            Leroux. That strangely mad professor of music theory. The director of the opera house to be exact. I eye my plate with a bit of acid rolling up the back of my tongue as I picture the man.

            “Charlene…I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

            She blinks at me, seemingly innocent and beautiful. I swallow stiffly in response, already wondering if I am about to appear the cad, “Ask me anything Rory.”

            “Who is it that has been teaching you? I heard rumors you were taking lessons from Leroux himself and I just wondered if that were true. He seems to be a very private man. I can’t picture him stooping to private lessons.”

            Charlene’s eyes pinch from sky blue to deep navy as she assesses me and I feel the pit grow heavier to lead in my gut. There is something in her gaze that answers for me. There is something between them. Something I will likely not be pleased with.

            “Yes. As a matter of fact he does teach me.”

            “How often do you see this mystery professor Leroux?”

            She tips her chin downwards, eyes falling to the cutlery, “I see him often. Up to four times a week usually for my lessons. But the man has become a dear friend to me.”

            I fight a vapid sense of injustice at the prospect of her seeing another man more than she does me and fight the urge to demand she never see him again. I certainly have no right to say such a thing regardless of my growing concern over her friendship with the man. There are better ways to handle such problems. Ways where my power, influence and money might suit a solution to this Leroux.

            “Interesting stuff really. I’ve heard he’s rather unfriendly.”

            She smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners and I think that my heart might be ripping at the sensation of want and kindness in her gaze. It surely isn’t for me. At least not like that. I’ve seen her look at me before in appreciation, seen her eyes flicker and dance and then smile with mischief. But not once in these last weeks of our romance has there been such passion burning in her eyes when we are speaking of us and our future. Do I wish a future with her?

            I blink down away from her, trying to collect my thoughts but find that I am completely off kilter. Though I fear I already know the answer. I do want a future with Charlene. She is far lovelier these many years later than she was even as a child and I have been bewitched by her. I must have her as my own. Till death do us part and I think that she wishes me too. At least in a way that will prove enough. If I can dissuade these feelings she has grown for her mentor.

            “He can be very disagreeable. But all in all, Edmond is a good man.”

            “Edmond is it?” I ask quietly, my voice dipping into a jealous tone before I can stop it. Charlene notices because her eyes are on mine quickly and she shakes her head at me. A reassuring gesture if nothing else. Perhaps it is merely infatuation that fuels her, though from his descriptions and my brief interactions I cannot see how. The man is near barbaric. I will have to procure my own research.

            “Am I not allowed to call another man by his first name now?” she asks with an edge that implies I have overstepped. And perhaps I have. Charlene makes my blood run hot one moment then lividly cold the next. She befuddles me.

            “I’m sorry dear. I merely meant that I didn’t realize you two were so close.”

            “We are.”

            I frown, unable to stop the next question from finding my lips, “Do you care for the man Charlene?”

            She blinks at me, shock painting her features in pale hues and I nearly take back what I’ve stated until her lips curve into a sad frown, eyes shimmering in cerulean tones, “Yes. But…”

            I raise my brows, impressed she admits anything at all. “But what? Should I stop seeing you now? Is that what has been happening between us lately? This Edmond has captured your heart?”

            I don’t realize how angry I am at the prospect of being duped until the words come grating past my lips but I find I don’t care. Charlene has been seeing me. Not Edmond, a man who has no rights to horn in on what I have finally found. A woman worth settling down for. A woman who shares a history with me and comes from a good family. She is right for me in every way and there is a large part of myself that is very bitter to have found her heart partially given to another man. Though I think I can change her mind. Perhaps.

            “No,” Charlene swallows, hand clenching mine, “No, that is not what I am saying. I’ve been distracted yes. But I am happy with you Rory. I like you very much and as serious as you are about me, I might feel the same. I’ve just been busy and distracted. Edmond and I…there is honestly little hope of a future there. You’ve no need to worry yourself.”

            I try to feel better with her halfhearted explanations and reassurances, but I feel far from it. Smiling, I nod, “Well, perhaps you should find another instructor. Don’t torture yourself, yes? I can’t imagine its healthy, nor good for either one of you. Particularly if Leroux has feelings for you.” I think my voice comes out fairly even considering I feel as though someone is choking me at the suggestion. I am attempting to handle things the proper way. The civil way. If Charlene does not see reason gently, then I will dig for what will help her to see reason.

            Even if I didn’t have a hat to play in this ring, I would still suggest she not involve herself with the man. He is nothing but trouble if I’ve anything to say. Though he is considered well educated and esteemed in tenure at the university, he is also incredibly dangerous to one’s reputation and from the rumors…I doubt all of them are false. Hot headed, cruel, bordering violent with a penchant for secrecy. Which leaves the most unseemly of all, his mask wearing business. Whatever the reason, it’s clear the man is a bit mad. 

            “Edmond and I are friends. I like him as my instructor. I won’t leave him now.”

            She sounds far too possessive for friends and I nod in acceptance of what I must do. “That’s fine. It was just a suggestion. Now, would like to order dessert or would you prefer a walk after supper?”

            “A walk would be wonderful, thank you Rory.”

           

**_Charlene_ **

****

            I have hardly the heart to tell Rory that I will not be performing the lead in Rigoletto as planned this weekend. After extensive discussion between the staff and the dean, I have been ousted by Constance who cried war over the upheaval in cast. It had been no surprise, though I am very disappointed to not being singing for Edmond. Who consequently, also promised to attend. I doubt he knows of the cast change, else he’d be furious.

            What was done had been a last minute change and though I am already being laced into my costume as a chorus member, I think that Edmond would likely raise hell if he knew in time. As it is, I pray he does not. Rory will only be disappointed but Edmond…it is not simply that his orders are being disobeyed in what he considers his opera house being its director, it is also that I will not be singing _for_ him. Something we both covet now as a small ounce of joy and happiness in which we need not make sense of our relationship.

            Is that how I feel now? Every performance must meet his approval or it is not worth while at all?

            I scowl at my reflection and nearly jump when I see the white face paint looking back at me in eyes of azure and painted eyeliner. My hair towers above me tall and regal, curled into ridiculous taming until it resembles a beehive rather than an up-do and I think laughter is better suited for my look than amazement. It matters little. I am only a chorus member this night. Nothing more, nothing less.

              Shaking myself internally, I stride from the open door to the dressing room, catching the eyes of several other chorus members as I smile at them. They smile back and I am infused with a dose of energy from their happiness to be on stage performing at all. I should be extraordinarily pleased to do so, no matter who or what I play.

            Taking this more positive thinking with me, I follow a string of chorus members onto the stage and smile brightly as the lights bathe us in blinding gold and the pit breaks into the opening number.

 

**_Edmond_ **

****

            “How dare you go against my explicit instructions without speaking with me?”

            The dean is leaning back against the wall, one hand clutching his temples in exhaustion and though I feel for him, I am livid. This is my opera house. My rules. My cast and songs. I will have my orders obeyed as they are. Orders, not requests. To do anything else, is to be blatantly foolish and demeaning to my position.

            “Listen, Leroux, I didn’t have time to consult you, Constance’s father does a great deal for the university and she threatened to have him pull the budget for the new library that we are in desperate need of. What was I supposed to say?”

            I feel my hands fist at my sides, wretched disappointment bubbling within me, “You could have defended my decisions. Not used my opera house as some cheap bargaining chip. I came here to see a real performance and do you know what’s happening beyond those walls right now?” I stab a finger at the closed auditorium’s doors, heart dropping to my toes, “A joke! Constance Bellange, has no idea how to act as well as sing and if my hearing were not so acute I might be able to look past her dropping tone but it is. So I imagine the audience can hear it too. You make me look the fool Milan.”

            Dean Milan, consequently Rory’s father, moves to stand and I see a steel enter his gaze as he studies me. This is not the first time that we have butted heads or grown cross with one another but I had thought that there was a sort of friendship that existed between us after so many years. Apparently not. The first sign of trouble and he has dumped me for a wealthy benefactor. A library. It sickens me to realize that the arts and my integrity mean so little to the man.

            “I had no intention of making you so angry Leroux. But in the end, this is my college and that means this opera house is ultimately mine…not yours. I make the decisions here. If you continue to pursue this, I will be forced to consider removing you as director. Even firing you.”

            I stare at him, hardly believing what I am hearing, “You would allow that little snob Constance to destroy my career because I won’t cow to what she and her father wish? Am I to cast her as the lead in every opera? Do and say as she wishes as well?”

            Milan does not hesitate, his eyes hardly leave mine, “Yes. You are. I want this library. I want Mr. Bellage happy with us and if you can’t fall in line, then I might need to find a new director and musical theory professor. You are not well liked here, no matter your expertise and it would be easy to replace you.”

            “Easy?” I hiss, very tempted to grasp Milan by the lapels and throw him to the ground. “Easy to replace me you say? I doubt any man or woman would take this position if I told them the sort of blackmail you use.”

            Milan cocks a brow at me, “I doubt any place will hire you after I tell them what I know of you.”

            I stiffen, “You know nothing that the rest of the world doesn’t.”

            “I know you are Edmond Theroux and not Leroux and that you can never return to France. Enough digging and enough interest into you, which wouldn’t be difficult with your…” he flicks a finger at my face, “Your ailment, and I think you’d be facing something a lot worse than a simple ass kissing.”

            If my heart weren’t so firmly lodged in my throat and my middle so horrifically pinched in dread and rage, I might have spit in the man’s face. Given a slew of unmentionable French curses, but instead, I simply stare at him, my jaw clenched to the point of pain. Hands fisted as hungry wolves for flesh. The old Edmond wishes to rise and take claim of me as violent flashes of crimson and cello flare in my mind and I quash the music and my thoughts forcefully.

            “I suggest you go and enjoy the rest of the performance as I will be doing. Intermission is nearly over.”

            “Give my regards to your lovely wife then.”

            Milan raises a dark brow, his lips twitching at my sarcastic yet polite comment, “If you weren’t so very brutish and I not so very much your boss, we’d make good friends you know Leroux.”

            I shake my head, “I doubt a change of circumstances would change who we both are.”

            Milan purses his lips eyes holding on my mask a moment in decided disgust, “No. I imagine you’re right. Leave this be Leroux. I don’t wish to make things ugly between us.”

            I am still seething in the hall when I hear the third act begin and I roll onto the balls of my feet several times to calm my flurry of thoughts and anger. My temper is ticking in varying degrees as a heady flush of blood beneath my skin and I have no notion of why I cannot seem to school my reaction to this. It is to be expected. Things like this happen. People get walked on, schools are more interested in funding than protecting their own…and yet, I am feeling acutely vengeful. Ridiculously so.

            I cast a wary eye to the closed doors, seeing that no other person is in the halls and immediately begin walking in the direction of the stage doors. I might have had that floozy Rory steal my normally reserved box seat and his father dress me down as a petulant insect, but I know my way around a catwalk and I most certainly know how to fight fire with fire.

            I reach the backstage with ease and it as expected, in a flurry of motion, stagehands fluttering about with hissed whispers and obedient actors. I try not to think of where Charlene might be in this chaos and fail entirely when I picture her face as she sees me dosing Constance with the pepper in my pocket. I think she would be very disappointed in me to say the least, perhaps even horrified. I try not to dwell on it over much and instead hike my weight onto the rope ladder that leads to the catwalks.

            My view is far greater this far up and I stare down at the doll-like image the actors make below, feeling myself at a greater distance than I am. It is perhaps what spurs me on to do what I am about to do without forethought of how foolish it might be.

            Striding the length of my present catwalk, I find that I can move with great stealth. Something that has apparently not been lost on me through the years. I used to be an expert in the arena due to Theroux’s horrific drinking and temper. Many were the times that I had not been quiet enough and learned the hard way what is was to feel pain.

            I frown, surprised at my own lack control on memories I have not allowed.

            I can see Constance singing on stage, her elegant shoulders rising and falling as she sings about Rigoletto, trying to garner the audience sympathy with her simpering pouts. I fear she will never be able to do such with her fallacy and inability to round vowels. Scowling, I descend the swinging rope on the end closest to me and creep towards the folding table that houses staff refreshments. Though I do not know Constance personally, it is easy to pick out her flamboyant excuse for a drink and I lift the bedazzled water bottle with ease, casting a cautious glance at my back for any witnesses. In the darkness as I am, it is doubtful any will see me. But still, I hesitate, for once thinking of someone else before myself. Charlene.

            Will she forgive me this small lapse in judgement? This childish indulgence to suit my aching pride? I pray so, because my hand is already unscrewing the lid, the fiery contents of ghost peppers I hold as a powdery death trap and I dump the red tainted substance in without hesitation.

            Spirals of victory are already finding their way into my chest as I reseal the lid and give it a shake. But it is short lived when a certain stage hand catches sight of my encroachment on the refreshment table. Instead of immediately shying away, skulking back into the shadows where I might hide away, I do something that only comes natural. I straighten, casting my gaze to the man with a silent smirk, my eyes daring a challenge to stop me. To do something about my presence. He clearly does not know that I am the director. But in these murky shadows, many might mistake me for an intruder.

            When he moves towards me with clear purpose, I make my decision and finally cede to retreat. Climbing back up the rope which I descended, I scramble up to the network of catwalks and hope that my superior skill in agility might give me an advantage. It is pleasant to know as the slightly overweight stagehand follows me, that some things do not change.

            I smile, far too pleased with what is about to happen below us as Constance sidles off to the side of the stage to steal a drink from her bottle and I find that my feet are suddenly glued to their spot. Her lips touch the bottle and she does as expected, gulping down several mouthfuls of water before jerking it back and spitting. Pleasure and victory swell in my chest and I feel a laugh bubbling at the back of my throat before I can stop it. Milan might have thought to bully me into silence, but even he will not be able to force me to cast the strumpet again in a lead if she falls apart on stage. And it is clear from her reaction to the spiced drink, that she is on the verge.

            Forced to go back out onto the blacktop, Constance wobbles a bit to start and I feel the heat of the stagehand’s gaze on the back of my neck. I jerk, all but having forgotten his existence. I wish nothing more than to enjoy this simple moment and then leave, but even that seems impossible. Particularly as the man looks set on either ousting me, or capturing me. Both of which are rather heroic for a mere stagehand. Or based in stupidity, I can’t tell which, despite his slightly Neanderthal looks.

            A horrific squawking noise pierces the air and rings in my ears, tearing my focus from the stagehand and we both stare down at Constance for a moment, eyes transfixed by the terrific fall of the wicked witch of the west. Despite my current situation, I do laugh, my voice carrying far too much and I struggle to close my lips and maintain any sense of decorum. Constance flounders, takes a breath then has a go at the main melody again, this time her voice cracking and creaking like a bloated toad, I nearly topple off the catwalk my laughter is so strong.

            Thankfully, I am not the only one. The audience, though confused by this unexpected turn of events seems unable to hide their own sounds of amusement and several patrons begin to howl in earnest. If I could, I would watch in abject glee as Milan turns a resplendent rutabaga as his folly is realized. Though, in truth, this will hurt my career as much as his. At least we will make companionable bed fellows.

            “Sir, you may not be up here.”

            The stagehand draws my attention reluctantly back to my current predicament and my humor fades into placid realization. He seems rather to determined to be rid of me. Though, I think he seems rather reasonable. I nod at him, attempting to appear unfazed though he has chased me into the catwalk and I have appeared rather guilty.

            “My name is Edmond Leroux. I am the director of this opera house,” I keep my voice in a whisper, turning to face the man fully, though I have already interrupted the performance considerably and the ballet dancers are a terrific mess as they bash into each other in hopes of rushing onto stage to prevent a full catastrophe. I think it rather silly now. The jig is up. Clearly, this night is to end in ruin and it pleases me immensely.

            This close, I know the stagehand can see me more clearly and he suddenly pales, his skin casting into waxen colors as he takes in not only my height and build but most importantly, my charcoal mask. Something that I occasionally forget. At present, it feels a heated stone across my skin and I think this man is not likely to believe me. He edges towards the roped rungs, his knuckles going white as he grips it in hand as another hand edges into his trouser pocket for something.

            I stiffen as I realize he is going for a weapon and level my gaze at him, willing him to see the man behind the mask. I am no opera ghost, no terrifying creature, I am a respectable member of society here in Rochester. I am Edmond Theroux…I blink at the glint of the knife that the man brandishes in trembling hands.

            Leroux. I am Leroux. Never Theroux.

            “Calm down sir, there is no need for weapons.”

            He stares at me, lips thinning into a white seam before he is whispering in a frenzied manner and I realize he believes nothing I am saying. “You’re a demon. You aren’t real. You can’t hurt me.”

            “I am a man. Look at me,” I can hear the slightly desperate notes creeping into my voice and as it does I am assailed with a horrific clash of parallel instruments. A cacophony of drums, violins, and cellos. Nothing pretty, nothing melodic about it, only a clashing of sound inside the confines of my skull and I wince, drawing a hand to press into my temple. “Think this through. You are in the intermountain opera house, above a stage full of witnesses. Have you not heard of me? Of my mask?” I offer the words quickly, desperate to gain some semblance of belief and then coherence from the man, but he merely stares at me more, his dark eyes flickering over me in quiet fear.

            When he procures his blade out before him, clearly intending to use it, I gape at him, hardly believing my eyes, “Dear Lord man, have you no common sense?”

            “You’re the demon. The opera ghost.”

            I swallow, watching sweat trickle in steady lines down the planes of his whiskered cheeks and wonder if he might be on something. Something other than fear, for surely the shadows do not make me look so horrifying as to justify this? To justify dispatching me? I am flesh and blood. No matter how demonic I have felt. Cymbals crash amidst a snare drum and my breath rushes out as he lunges for me, blade barely nicking my knuckles as it whistles past.

            “Listen,” I gasp, dodging another blow, countering his attack with a hefty shove in the square of his chest, “You are not thinking clearly.”

            “I’m thinking just fine, demon!” he hisses, eyes latching onto me again as he catches his balance on the ropes. We are in such a precarious position up here, swinging as if we are apes rather than men that I very nearly drop to all fours as to not fall to my death.

            Gritting my teeth, I do what I feel is needed. I charge him.

            Catching him about the waist, we collapse into each other, faces near enough I can smell alcohol on his breath, hear his rasping pants and I am assaulted with memories of Theroux’s face in mine. His breath on my neck as he cursed me with the tines of a cracked leather belt. Wincing, I jerk my fist back and hit Theroux square in the face. Blood pours out from the nose I have broken and the shimmering face of Theroux morphs back into a stranger. The stagehand grunting beneath me, fighting to be free of me as his blade suddenly finds purchase in my shoulder.

            I hardly feel the silver go into flesh, nor when it sucks back out as it rears for another blow and I shrink suddenly away from him, no longer seeing anything but Theroux above me as I do. Stumbling backwards on my hands, the catwalk swings precariously under our weight and hot warmth rushes down my shoulder and arm to soak my fingertips.

            Something acrid and unwelcome fills my mouth, the back of my throat and lungs and I recognize it at once. Something I have not felt in twelve years. Terror.

            Theroux lumbers to his feet, coughing, blood pouring from his nose and I know there will hell to pay for my defiance. He will hurt me. Over and over until I can hardly scream anymore and I feel determination settle its way through me as a heavy poison, taking place of the terror. I welcome it, eyeing Theroux as he swipes his nose and readjusts his grip on the knife he carries. Shaking my head, I try to clear my image, try to recall a different face a different man who stabbed me but find the stagehand is long gone from view. It is only me and Theroux.

            “Cursed wretch,” he gurgles at me, spitting blood at my dress shoes. Theroux’s face wavers again and I blink up at him, desperate to regain some of my sanity as I can feel it fast slipping. I killed Theroux. This is not him. He is dead. Dear Lord…please let him be dead.

            I act without thinking and I kick out hard, catching Theroux at the shins. As he is standing, there is little he can do to catch his balance and the overweight man falls into the hand ropes, dips for a moment dropping his blade as he lets loose a squabble of fear and then he is falling. Blessedly falling away from me down past the ropes, over the edge towards the blacktop of the stage where he falls with a sickening crunch of flesh and bone.

            I lean over the wooden slats, belly down to peer at Theroux but find a stranger with eyes wide and vacant staring up at me from twenty feet down, a sickly crimson puddle forming beneath his head. He is dead.

            I killed him.

            Not Theroux…but a stranger. A mere stagehand who was just frightened of me. Who didn’t recognize who I was and thought me a ghost.

            Vomit instantly threatens to rise up my throat as I hear the first scream pierce the air and I find my strength is renewed enough to run. Like a rat. Like the coward I am, the one who fled in Paris and raced to the sewers. It takes little time to reach the door I know will lead me to the roof and I think that perhaps this time I will be brave enough to toss myself off of it. For I surely deserve it.

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            A scream makes its way up my throat, past my lips and into the auditorium as I see the body lying prostrate on the stage floor. The opera breaks as scattering beads torn from a lovely necklace and its pieces flood outwards in wavering tides. I feel my eyes torn from the body upwards to where he must have fallen and horror clenches its deadly claws into my middle in a desperate hold. Though I scarcely believe it, though I know it to be impossible, I cannot deny the image of a man’s dark eyes in a dark mask, barely discernable from the catwalk, a white collar peeking up from his jacket. He is peering down at the body on the ground, as if to reassure himself of something. I realize with sickening clarity two rather impossible details.

            The man is Edmond. And he is reassuring himself of Baldric’s death. The stagehand who drank too much and was rather crude, but just a lowly man with no recourse or cause for such an end. Tears cloud my vision and I attempt to blink away the evidence but find I cannot. I am too overcome with this emotion.

            Despair.

            Edmond had always been dark. Always seemed as though secrets lay hidden in his gaze, some of which I knew I would find distasteful, but I cannot seem to deny his involvement in this. I wish to think him innocent. Wish to imagine that he was merely a bystander who happened to witness an accident. As everyone else will no doubt imagine it. But I cannot.

            Blinking past the moisture in my eyes that attempts to sully my vision, I dance away from the others, desperate to regain some sort of control. I feel my heart wildly spinning in my chest, a ticking bomb of pain and I make way quickly towards a winding staircase that I know leads to the roof. Up and out, someplace where the air feels thinner and brighter, less congested with the sounds of screams and the acrid scent of sweat and vomit.

            I don’t blame the offenders, I myself feel very close to losing my stomach as I pass the corpse who used to be Baldric. He does not look himself any longer, rather an empty husk dropped in a shallow bloody grave. It hurts my stomach to stare into his wide-eyed gaze, but I find that I do anyways. Wondering if these eyes saw Edmond last? Or is there a better explanation for what I have seen?

            A quake of fear rushes through me in icy needles and I scramble away from the body, only vaguely aware of a man coming beside me. There is a tiny shred of myself that wishes it were Edmond coming to see to me, coming to explain what I have seen, but when my eyes hold this man’s it is very clear he is not the beauteous creatures who haunts me. He is Rory. Everything about him exudes light and warmth and I find my hand gripping his, fingers digging into the very real flesh of his palm to ground myself as I pull him behind me.

            I need him in this moment I think. I need Rory to erase the pain. The fear and regrets of this night and as we burst onto the roof amidst the swirl of spiced wind and crisp leaves underfoot, my heart claws at my insides and my eyes swell with tears. I realize I am mourning something lost, something I feel slipping away from me and I tear away from Rory as the conflict rages within me. Edmond. I truly wish for Edmond.

            Why does he torment me so? Why does he find me here, even when he has no place in my life? But he does. I can hear his gentle whisper at my ear, the notes of a song written just for me caressing a place inside my soul that belongs to only him. Begging for understanding. Patience. Forgiveness. _I am a good man. I did not do what you think I did. Angel, please._

I shake my head as I slam Edmond’s voice out of my mind, finally hearing Rory’s anxious whispers instead of Edmond’s beside me. He is touching my face, fingertips as velvet gliding over my cheeks as his eyes beseech me to explain what ails me. It is quite clear, there is more to this moment than meets the eye and I can see it in Rory’s gaze burning me to the core and I desperately wish to tell him. To find peace in this chaos.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Edmond_ **

****

            My foot slips on the slightly damp stone and I cling to the marble hand of the statue blocking me from Charlene and Rory’s view with a desperate hold. Their presence is the only reason why I did not fling myself from the roof, dispatching my life in an easy move. Finality and peace would be my companion…and if I were so bold, perhaps even God would greet me when the light faded from my eyes. I pray it will still so and I close my eyes to focus on my breathing, to even my scrabbling heart within its cage.

            “Rory you do not understand.”

            “What don’t I understand Charlene?”

            “He was there! I saw him above the stage on the catwalk looking down at the body.”

            “Who Charlene? Who did you see?”

            There is a brief pause, an exhalation and then she answers in a voice devoid of emotion, “Never mind. You’ll think me mad.”

            “I don’t think you mad. But you must tell me…do you speak of Leroux?”

            Silence falls about the empty air and I tip my head back into the statue, clenching my jaw as fear races in prickles over my skin. What does she mean? Had she seen me on the catwalk? Could she ever truly think me a murderer? I dare not dwell on it, particularly as I myself feel one. I should deserve her hatred, but I desperately do not wish it. Most especially from her.

            “You think him a monster…this Leroux.”

            My stomach drops abruptly to my toes and tears prick my eyes as Charlene does nothing to defend me, nothing to claim otherwise and I realize with sick dread that she likely agrees. She has already cast me as the villain and I have not even spoken to her. Am I not one?

            “I don’t know what I think. I’m just afraid. Very afraid Rory.”

            “He can’t hurt you. I’ll protect you.”

            Indignation burns me. I would never harm her. Never.

            I cannot stand another moment of this blindness. I press into the cool of the stones, ignoring the trickle of blood which feels sticky about my fingers and I risk looking to the stranger that Charlene has become to me. She stands before Rory, hands clasped in his, skin drenched in pearl beneath the moon’s cream and I feel dreadful want curl in my stomach. She is so very lovely, so very unattainable and I have just done what is unforgivable, a reckoning that has thrown her straight into another man’s arms. I can see it in the way she is leaning towards Rory, their whispers having grown too faint for me to hear and I struggle not to panic, struggle not to cry out in my attempts to stop them.

            But it is too late. I can see it. I can…feel it.

            I glance down at myself and I realize the whole front of my tuxedo is damp with blood, the smattering of crimson looking garish and toxic. I feel lightheaded at the scent of the coppery liquid and I focus for several seconds on breathing through my mouth to prevent my collapse. If I fall now, it will be to my death upon the scuttle of cars beneath me. But isn’t that what I want? Now, more than ever?

            “Rory, what are you saying?”

            I blink, mind hazy with fatigue and loss of blood, but somehow sharp enough to catch the change of tone in Charlene’s voice. He has asked her something, said something that interests her greatly and I peer once again behind the statue to see them, though I know this will likely only hurt worse. The hair on my arms prickles in foreboding and I pray he will not do what I think he will. Surely he would not be the cad and take advantage of her weakened emotions? Though even I would be tempted…

            “I think you know Charlene. I am saying that I love you. That I wish to marry you.”

            “You do?”

            A searing pain lances through my gut and I grit my teeth until I hear my jaw pop from the pressure. Blackness flickers in my vision and I realize I am holding my breath.

            “I do. I know its bad timing, but if anything, seeing you so afraid and worried coupled with the sudden death of that stagehand…it has made me see that I wish to not waste time. Life alters and fluxes so quickly. Alive one moment, dead the next. I know it’s not nearly a romantic enough proposal, nor is it likely what you expected, but I must say this nonetheless, I want to start our life as soon as possible. I’d planned on asking you tonight anyways, but it seems especially right to do it now. Will you marry me?”

            I brace for her answer. Already knowing what it will be, though it still seems to scrape its serrated claws through my chest with merciless glee.

            “Oh Rory…” she whispers his names as if it is a prayer answered. As if she is in love with him. Grateful to him. How can this be happening? My life is like the Roman Empire collapsing into elegant ruin and I am helpless to stop it. If God has spared me my death upon the streets, it is only to remind me of my horrific fragility.

            “Yes. Yes, I will.”

            “You’re sure Charlene?” Rory must be as unconvinced of her turn around as I feel. She is running. From me. I do not blame her.

            “Yes Rory, I love you. This is right. I needed to hear this tonight.”

            I feel a sob bare down within my chest and I bite on my tongue until it bleeds freely to keep silent. Charlene has chosen…why can I not give up then? Why does it feel as though my heart is still within her? As though she holds it in her grasp with a dagger pricked into the muscle?

            I am being punished for my sins. Punished for ever daring to love a woman so very much out of my league. Someone I dare not desire or deserve.

            There is a brief moment where I think they will leave me alone. Finally, a chance where I might escape this cursed roof and dip into insanity or unconsciousness. Somehow the idea of cascading down to meet pavement and blaring taxis doesn’t seem as horrendous as it might have a day previous and I find my mind circle about the concept as water over a drain.

            Until I hear her sing.

            My heart seizes within my chest, white-hot rage and pain flooding me as I realize she is singing for him. A gentle little melody, something that had been meant for us leaving her lips in emotion drenched feeling for _him._ As if it cannot get any worse, I hear him attempt a reply in song, fumbling over my notes as if this is not the first and I suddenly feel naked and exposed. This man has heard this song before because Charlene has sung it for him…perhaps even with him.

            Should it feel as though I am being gutted like this? I doubt it. No other person would understand it. They would think me as much an abomination for tying Charlene to my music as she is to my heart, without a single difference. Dear Lord, I have given her the keys to my ruin and she will now destroy me.

            “Mercy…” I whisper, feeling heated strips of something coursing over my cheeks. Tears. I am crying as a feeble woman, unable to keep my emotions in check and I am mortified to realize it. Scraping my hands angrily down my cheeks I am so focused on trying not to be heard as I stand a pitiful gargoyle, bleeding and crying like some milksop that I hardly notice when the music fades and Charlene disappears with Rory through the roof exit.

            Relief pools over me in crystal waves and I accept it for what it is. An answer to prayer, a merciful gift as I’d begged for. I am alone. And I have never felt it more acutely than this moment. I can hardly think of what has transpired just inside the opera house for I have a sickly sensation that it is to be my end. The death of the stagehand is in many ways the death of Edmond Leroux…and most unfortunately, the rising of the opera ghost. I am unsure what this means for me, only that I feel dreadfully desperate. And if I have been taught nothing through my years of survival it is that desperation breeds despair.

 

**_Edmond_ **

****

            “Comment avez-vous fait cela, Edmond?”

            I peel my eyes open to the voice of my physician, hardly noticing he has spoken in French. Though he seems distant from me, I blink several times to clear the halo that surrounds his aging face. Wrinkles line his cheeks and eyelids as a shock of white hair falls heavily over his brow and I think his eyes look very amber in this lighting. As if he is some mythical creature with glowing eyes.

            “English. Please Gaston.”

            He raises a quizzical brow at my request, having never heard me protest to speaking in our native tongue until this moment but I feel that even speaking it, brings me closer to being Edmond Theroux. Closer to Paris and all of its hideous memories.

            “How did you do this then? I’m having a hard time imagining you becoming wounded whilst wielding your kitchen cutlery…even you are not such a poor cook.”

            My eyes feel as though sand scrapes across the cornea when I force my gaze to Gaston St. Pierre and I inhale softly through my mouth to prevent a nose-full of blood and antiseptic.

            “I don’t want to discuss the details with you.”

            “You know I am required to report any stabbings or shootings to the police, don’t you Edmond?”

            I openly glare now, having lost any sort of patience in the last hours it has taken me to get back to my home and to this bed. Though I distinctly remember passing out at one point in my wait for Gaston, I feel as though it has been days and even my skin feels thin with fatigue. “Can you not just treat me already? Give me something for the pain and then leave?”

            Gaston’s jaw snaps shut and I know that I have offended him. Our friendship does not deserve my ire or secrecy, most especially as this doctor has been treating me since my arrival in America just over a decade ago. Even now, I don’t feel even the slightest bit of shame as I sit with no barrier of a mask between he and I. Gaston has never treated me with anything but respect save a hindrance of caution. But even still, I find there is very little left within me, most especially patience or kindness. I am a hollow shell of my former self.

            “You know that I have cared for you for these ten years without question. Never demanding answers, even though there were times I should have. But this…this is too much. You must tell me how you were injured.”

            I swallow stiffly, attempting to rise to my forearms on the mattress. It seems I have all but forgotten how to behave as a gentleman. “I was stabbed Gaston. Clearly.”

            His forehead wrinkles as he presses me back to the mattress, eyes hovering over the tear in my bared shoulder. I do not remember stripping from my tuxedo, but the rumpled remains of a black overcoat and starched crimson undershirt lie discarded on my bedroom floor as evidence of such.   

             At least the bleeding appears to have slowed and it now merely oozes in spider rivulets down my bicep onto the sheets. Sheets that will need to be thrown away now.

            “You were attacked then?”

            Though his question seems innocent enough I can’t help but to prickle at the uncertainty in his tone, the deeper reason he might be fishing for answers. “No, I stabbed myself to get you here for a bit of inconsequential chit-chat…” I wince, feeling my head throb and I take a deep breath to quell a broiling of nausea.

            “You are as surly as ever.”

            “And impatient. Please, if you’ve come to only speak to me. Leave me to die.”

            “Die?” he questions, hands coming to rest on my shoulders to keep them pressed back into the mattress, “Surely you will not die this night with me as your caretaker, though from the looks of it, you will need blood. You’ve lost an ample amount. And I must stitch this closed.”

            “I thought that might be the case…” I muse softly, eyes fluttering to half-mast. I cannot even begin to think past my injury to Charlene yet. Not yet.

            “Edmond…is this something to do with that Charlene woman you spoke of several months ago?”

            I press my eyes closed the rest of the way, sealing both Gaston and Charlene away from me, though her auburn hair and dove eyes find me here too. Tears clog my throat and I take several swallows of air to stop my voice from coming out choked. “It is. But I don’t…rather, I can’t talk about it Gaston. Please, if you will, stitch me closed. Give me something to ease the pain and then leave me in peace.”

            He places a roughened hand on my arm, his skin feeling far warmer than the chill of mine, “I will stay tonight.”

            “No,” I hiss as his fingers probe the wound lightly, pressing into the skin that is puckered and cherry stained. My injury appears to be three inches in width, though it might as well be a foot for the amount of pain and damage it has wreaked to the patch of muscle it inhabits.

            “You need to be monitored. It is the price you paid for, oui? A private physician? As it is, I believe you have severed several blood vessels and if you wish the use of your arm, you will need me to perform minor surgery.”

            “The use of my arm?” I sit up abruptly, sending tiny black speckles spraying across my vision and vomit up my throat.

            “Calm down. I said only if I didn’t treat it.”

            “You said surgery.”

            “Yes,” he answers me stiffly, eyes dark with severity, “It must be done. You will not have the use of it for a few weeks as compared to a possible lifetime. Think clearly.”

            “I am,” I snap, lungs near bursting from the effort not to scream at him. I settle for a non-committal grunt, pressing my hands into the mattress, “Do it.”

            Gaston seems appeased with my answer because he moves to his medical bag and begins sifting through the contents with the seasoned eye of a veteran. I watch him pluck out several syringes, measure fluids from two labeled vials and then offer a white brow to me in question. “May I?”

            “Please,” I find my voice is near begging. Pain is now flaming up and down my arm and into my chest with increasing volume. It is a wonder I have not given back into the velvet warmth of unconsciousness, but I suspect it is my stubborn nature that prohibits me from such.

            He pricks the inside of my arm with a syringe, pressing the clear fluid into me at a steady pace. I watch, mildly interested in when the medicine will take hold and I pray that Charlene does not find me in my drug induced stupor as well. I wish only darkness to swallow me, rich and buttery darkness where emotion and the world cannot find me. I might hide my face there.

            “Sleep Edmond…”

            I start to feel the darkness take hold, creeping over my legs and arms in heavy weights and there is a peculiar sensation of smothering that takes hold of me. I panic a moment, eyes fighting the drug as I stare up at Gaston and try to decipher his intent, his goodwill towards me. I am suddenly questioning everything, everyone and I dare to fear that I am being murdered as I so easily trusted him. Though there is a tiny portion of my practical mind left that insists, I am merely allowing my scars to cloud my judgement. Not every person will betray me.

            Gaston’s brows meet, their bushy whites looking as little caterpillars and I fumble blindly for his hand, feeling my lips go numb, “Gast…on…”

            “You are safe Edmond. Very safe. I will be right here when you wake. I swear it. Sur mon honneur, garçon doux.”

            “Merci…”

            Gaston places a hand across my forehead in a gentle gesture that implies he is more than just my doctor and I his employer. He might be called friend, mentor…father. And there is a bitter part of myself that thinks he could have been my father. I blink sluggishly, watching Gaston’s face blur behind tears and I don’t fight them even as I know that Gaston will see it. He will know that I am not the beast I try to be, nor am I the man I wish to be. In truth, I am merely the boy who was cast out by the world and still wishes its acceptance.

            “Sommeil, Edmond.”

            I finally obey him. And I sleep.

           

***

 

            “Edmond. Wake up.”

            I shift, feeling a deep groan rise in my chest as I thrash against an unknown weight over me. Theroux. He is on top of me, pressing me into the mattress and he is going to finish me this time. Suffocate me with my pillow or do I feel his thick fingers around my neck? I toss my head back and forth, feeling sweat pepper my skin and I struggle to open my eyes.

            “Edmond!”

            He is gripping my arms, hurting me. I cry out, swinging a hand out to catch him in the face but strike nothing but air. A hand clamps over my wrists and I am strangely too feeble to break free. Weak as a newly born babe.

            “Me laisser aller, vous cochon! Je vous tuera!”

            “Edmond, I am Dr. St. Pierre. You need to open your eyes,” awareness begins to buzz in the back of my mind and I fight to obey, blinking at the sudden onslaught of light that burns my tender eyes. The voice moves to my ear, imploring me to listen, “Stop moving. You will hurt yourself worse.”

            “Gaston, où suis-je?”

            “You are at your home. In bed. You called me to take care of you. You were stabbed.”

            Memories burn their way into my middle and I press a hand to my stomach as I remember what I wish I didn’t. Charlene and her betrayal followed closely by a gruesome death that I am very much responsible for. Gaston is peering down at me, his eyes narrowed behind a pair of gold spectacles and his tawny eyes are layered in bags and circles. He looks exhausted and I am eternally grateful for his help.

            “Thank you Gaston,” I rasp, my voice sounding raw, “Did the surgery go well?”

            By the dull ache in my shoulder and the thickness of bandages swathing the tissue, I would imagine so. But hearing it from my physician’s lips will go much further with my aching heart. I could never bear to lose an entire arm to this. It would hurt my music irrevocably and as it is, I fear Charlene has done far too much damage already. 

            “Oui, Edmond. All is well and you will regain your strength in time. But for now, we must go.”

            Alarm flits through me at the older man’s posture. He looks as though he is a rubber band about to snap in two. Bending over me, he makes a move to take a hold of my arms, fingers gripping me roughly as if to sit me up. “What happened? What is it?”

            “The police came looking for you this morning.”

            “How long has it been?”

            Gaston purses his lips as if he is unwilling to answer me and I feel my mouth go dry, “How long?”

            “Five days.”

            “What happened?” I barely get the words out before Gaston is tugging on me again, slinging one of my arms over his shoulders as if the old man has enough strength to drag me from my bed. I try to comply, but in all honesty, I am hardly able to put any weight on my legs as they threaten collapsing under me.

            “You spiked a fever,” he grunts jerking me higher and I muffle a groan of pain, “And I had to keep you sedated for longer than planned.”

            Which explains my incredible weakness.

 

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “What are you thinking in that lovely head of yours?”

            I blink at Rory, pulling my gaze from the pale sheet of glass that separates me from the outside world of swirling snowflakes and I find him standing very near. His presence is a soothing warmth, a most welcome sensation to the frigidity that has gripped my heart as of late. Though it has been weeks since I’ve seen Edmond, since he has been accused of murder as I feared…there is a place within me that cannot believe it. Not truly. And yet, he has not come to me. He has not tried to explain himself and I am left with but one option. To believe Edmond Leroux is a murderer and I never knew him at all. What we had was not real.  

            “Nothing Rory. Just daydreaming.”

            His lips curve into a frown and I recognize it for its frequency of late. Rory has gleaned there is something else that hides behind my smile and the longer I wear it, the less I can deny it. “This about him, isn’t it?”

            “Him?” I ask softly, my face turning from the window, thoughts instantly scattering as little frightened mice from the light of truth. I hardly wish to admit it to myself let alone Rory who is not in the least understanding of my plight.

            “Yes,” Rory’s frown deepens, twin lines of irritation marking him several years older than he looks as he assesses me. “Him. Edmond Leroux, the man who was your beloved instructor who is now being hunted for murder. Does this not bother you?”

            “It does,” I mutter the words meekly, but my soul aches at their reality. It pains me to hear Edmond so callously mentioned in conjunction with such a dire fate. But I know that I must become accustomed to it. In all actuality, Edmond is likely the killer. I saw him on the catwalk with my own eyes and pending the investigation of the Rochester Police Department, it appears that even his blood was left at the scene. A goodly bit of it.

            But why was he so wounded? Could it have been self-defense? If so, then why run and make himself appear so very guilty?

            “Charlene, I must tell you something. Something that I’ve been loath to divulge to you and now I feel obligated to tell you.”

            I stare at him a moment, aware my hands have gone white in a clasp in front of me, “If you feel I need to know something Rory,” I swallow thickly, “Then by all means tell me.”

            Rory places a hand atop mine and I allow the warmth of his grasp to seep through me a moment, his skin to comfort the impossible ache that has grown as wide as a spanning canyon. But then his words flutter to me as tiny little needles and I nearly wince at the underlying acidity in his tone.

            “As you know, I have some connections throughout Rochester and I’ve inquired as to the police investigation’s progress to find that they have indeed built a solid case against your teacher. As you might have guessed, his blood was found at the scene…a considerable amount of it. And though they postulate the man might have perished without medical help, it is also very likely he still lives and is at large within Rochester.”

            “I know all of this, Rory.”

            His grip tightens on my hands, “That is not all of what I know.”

            I tug away from him, suddenly angry with his theatrical release of information and I find myself back before the expanse of windows, my eyes searching for something. Anything. Perhaps I instinctively hunt for Edmond in the mess of winter that has come to Rochester.

            “He is not who you think he is.”

            “He is Edmond Leroux. And he was my friend, Rory.”

            Rory grips my shoulder, forcefully bringing my face to his and I stifle a word of protest as I see the steel glinting in his gaze. He intends to see my reaction to his juicy bit of information and I find that I cannot blame him. I have mourned the loss of Edmond for weeks…it seems only fair that Rory deals the final death blow to my shredded heart.

            “His name is Edmond Theroux and he is wanted for murder in France. For murdering his own guardian, Charlene. The man is a monster. He doesn’t merely wear a mask to hide his blight on the world. He wears one to hide his murderous guilt. He has killed before and clearly he has done it again. You must put him out of your head and if I am to be so very honest with you, your heart. Let him go.”

            I blanch at this newest bit of information, more shocked than I wish to be, though not nearly shocked enough. There is a place within me that understands this was some of the blackness in Edmond I saw. The darkness from his past leaking through to the surface that he couldn’t hide. His ability to take life had frightened me and it all falls into sickening place as I register why his touch had both enticed and repelled me. It was not merely the knowledge of what lie beneath that obsidian porcelain shell, it was the soul that peered back at me.

            I picture Edmond’s almond eyes, warm with yearning and I feel my hands begin to tremble. Rory mistakes it for fear and I see his lips drop into a deeper scowl.

            “He will not harm you. But it is time you move past him. It has been weeks. Dearest friend or not, I cannot stand to see you look so forlorn after a man who is not your fiancé.” Rory shrugs in a boyish manner and my heart squeezes at the action. I have not meant to hurt him with my grief, but it is clear that I have. At least in some small way.   

            “He was…” I flinch at the past tense in my voice, “He is nothing to me now.”

            “But he was something.”

            I blink up at Rory, realizing that I was a fool to think he would not see the truth. Lovely eyes of aquamarine peer down at me, beseech me to be honest and I find I cannot. I won’t hurt Rory by telling him the truth. The ugliness of it is simply too much for even me to comprehend yet.

            I am in love with Edmond. Leroux. Theroux. Whatever his true name is. My heart doesn’t seem to care. I still feel it as a tangible thread that connects me to this murdering beast and I feel my eyes fill with tears as I glance away from Rory.

            “Yes he was. But that time has come and gone,” I swipe a hand under my eyes to dispel the evidence of such a time that preens under my thoughtful discretion. It wishes freedom and I fight it savagely, forcing Edmond’s eyes away from me. His bone melting voice that beckons me to savor each sensation back under lock and key where he belongs. I am Rory’s now. Edmond and I, can never be.

            “He is a bad man Charlene, you know this, don’t you?”

            I smile, “Yes, Rory, I do.”

            As if he is not convinced of this, Rory side-steps me and takes up his post at his desk, rummaging through the contents a moment to pull out a manila envelope still sealed with a small silver clasp. I stare at it a moment, refusing to accept his ‘gift’ for I know what it is. More evidence of evil against Edmond. More reasons to hate my love for him. More things I should never be able to surmount. It will merely make me feel less stable than I already do.

            “Thank you, but no.”

            Rory shakes his head, “I fear you must read the details for yourself to understand what kind of monster it is you fancy.”

            “I don’t fancy him.” I love him.

            Rory arches an indignant brow, his lips pressing into a line, “I’d like for you to look at it Charlene. Take it home with you and just look into it. I think it will help you move past him once you do.”

            “There is nothing to move past Rory,” I close the distance between us, press a chaste kiss to his warm lips and then skirt past him to the waiting door. We have a party to go to at the Hilton and I don’t wish to be late. Most especially over a moot conversation.

           

**_Edmond_ **

****

            I am a different man when I watch them dance about in pretty circles across the rented ballroom’s gleaming floor. No longer Edmond, but a dashing vigilante dressed in black from head to toe. My mask has been exchanged for that of a pearlescent white and though I feel strange concealing the whole of my face, I am grateful for its covering when my eyes finally land on Charlene.

            Misericorde, she is nearly more exquisite than even my dreams. But in my dreams she does not stand across the room with another man, one hand possessively postured on his chest.

            I feel a distinct note of a sour bassoon drop to my belly and hover in earnest desire to send my meager meal back up and I look away to quell it. I did not come all this way to lose my nerve now. I am past the point of no return and there is little that even my feelings can stop.

            Though…I still find my feet gliding across the marble, taking me inevitably into her path beside that besotted whoremonger Rory Milan.

            I have spent the last weeks in a formidable silence. A stalemate of heart and head and though I have been tormented with Charlene’s voice as soloist to my masterpieces, I have also come to my decision. I cannot leave her. I cannot leave any of it. How this is to look, or when it is to happen, I do not even dare to think overly long on myself. It is too frightening to think of the lengths I might go to have her. Am I merely a fool, reaching for sunlit streams unable to tell the difference between physical and spiritual?

            The reality of this is rather simple. I swallow stiffly, feeling my throat threaten closing as I gain enough distance to see Charlene’s eyes shimmer in opalescent tones. I don’t care what I have to do. I have reached the point of desperation. Spent far too many nights these last months tortured by her voice in both my waking and then in my fretful nightmares. It has brought me to the humble conclusion that I cannot live without her. What this means for the man who stands at her side and myself, I still am not certain though I doubt it will end well for all parties. It is something I am willing to risk.

            She wears a simple ruby gown, elegantly trimmed in ivory and I watch her eyes flit over the dancefloor as if she is looking for someone. I feel the breath rush out of me, my heart stammer to a painful stop within my chest when her gaze falls to mine and holds. But there is no recognition there. No sign that she sees Edmond behind this frightful mask of skeletal bone…

            Taking the path nearest her, I come close enough to brush her gown with my fingertips, testing the silken fabric as a starved creature who has been imprisoned for too long and I am shamefully close to tearing her away from Rory’s grasp and stealing her away as some caveman might. The thought is very tempting.

            “Miss Darlington…” I hear my voice come out differently, any trace of my Parisian accent muffled under the strains of a harsh New England tone. I pray that no other can hear the falseness in me, save Charlene. It is her that I pray will recognize my gaze.

            She turns, eyes slipping to my mask, dancing over the terrific gauntlet that bares bleached bone and sunken eyes painted with black around the sockets. It is a risk in coming here so brazenly, but I find it very much worth the effort as I see Rory’s eyes flit over me and then immediately discard me.

            “I beg your pardon, but I see my father has arrived.”

            Charlene nods at him, but her eyes are back to mine in less than a breath, her lips pursing into a thoughtful pinch, “Do I know you Mister…?”

            She leaves it as an open question and I nod leaning close enough that I can see the dark fringe of lashes that compliment her eyes. Her skin is painted in alabaster tones of sweet rose and I smile gently, willing her to see me. At least in this moment I wish it, though I know it is madness to stand so in the open. She could easily turn me in, gasp and point her finger that the murderer has slipped into their masquerade party and yet, I sense she will not. Our bond is too great for that.

            “Do you not recognize your angel of music?” I tease, lifting her hand to my mouth for a chaste but extremely formal kiss. Her knuckles cause my lips to tingle and I feel more than see when she recognizes me. A shudder runs the length of her arm and I drop her hand immediately, likely more affected than she.

            “Edmond…” She whispers, one hand flying to her mouth in shock.

            I lean far too close for propriety, most especially as I know of the small silver band that dangles into the folds of her corset. The ring that claims her as another man’s fiancé…something I have yet to feel anything less than rage or immense sorrow over.

            “Charlene, please, I must speak with you.”

            “You cannot be here.”

            “I have risked everything to speak with you. Will you please listen?”

            I feel my hands tighten about her wrist I did not realize that I had grasped and I force the tension from my grip. Cerulean eyes dance to where Rory disappeared to, debate for a smattering of seconds and then fall back to me. I see resolution mark the depths of her gaze and I find that it bolsters my courage.

            “Come, I know a place you won’t be missed.”

            “Edm--,” she falls silent and leans close enough her lips nearly touch the shell of my ear. I have to fight a ridiculous shudder. “We must be careful. Rory will not appreciate this.”  
            I refrain from snorting in disgust and instead take Charlene’s hand in mine, “Rory does not know who he has been playing with.”

            “Playing?”

            I don’t say anything, but rather tug her towards the bellhop entrance I snuck in through. I have already paid the kitchen staff to remain silent and we pass by them with ease, two masked silent characters whisking through a mass of steamed lobster and fresh escargot. I find that my mouth automatically waters at such a foreign French delicacy. Admittedly, I used to indulge in such expenses. Now, that seems a lifetime ago. My life in Rochester as a man of some sort of standing, the façade I had built long tarnished and crumbled. Now, there is only Charlene, my music and a lifetime of hatred to bolster me.

            Was there anything more than that or had I merely been playing a game as a child? Desperate for acceptance no matter the cost? Did I not think it would catch up with me?

            A trembling violin spears me in a mournful melody I know well now and I shake my head to dispel it, though it yearns for release. Charlene is still silent when we reach my destination and I pull her into the staff janitorial closet. It locks from the inside. Which is really all I care about, though the company of brooms, mops and industrial cleaners around our finery is comical to say the least. It feels surreal.

            “I had to speak with you.”  
            “So you said,” she whispers, tearing her fingers from my grasp to back up until we are far apart as possible.

            “I know you think I killed him.”

            Charlene levels me with a cold look, devoid of any emotion and I feel my heart lurch. “Did you?”

            “I…” I swallow, fisting my hands into the black folds of the vigilante costume I wear. My mask feels stifling and is far less comforting than the one I usually don. “I did. But not in the way you think. It was truly self-defense.”

            She shakes her head, “You ran Edmond. You ran from the scene. If it was self-defense why did you run?”

            “Because I was afraid.”

            “You? Afraid?” She sounds as if the very idea of a man frightened is equal to sacrilegious quantities and I feel a stinging blush rush to my cheeks at the honesty of my words.

            “Yes Charlene. Men occasionally do feel fear. Now is a prime example though why I should fear your reaction is beyond me. Particularly with that joke hanging around your neck.”

            She flinches, hand immediately going to cover the ring as if to hide it. But it is still nestled where she intended it and I sigh loudly, taking a tentative step towards her though the anger broils just beneath the surface. “I know.”

            “What are talking about Edmond?”

            “What am I talking about?” My voice has climbed in decibels and it feels far too loud for the small closet we are speaking in. It only adds to the lunacy of this pitiful moment where I feel my soul unwinding. The music of her voice aching in my head with the treble of a clarinet solo. It haunts me. “I am speaking of this godforsaken piece of jewelry you wear!”

            I close the distance between us in fell swoop, hooking a finger under the golden glint of the chain on her chest as I pluck it from its hiding place. The ring falls heavily between us against her corset and I grip both her arms pressing my chest against, unable to stop myself as I feel the sorrow of that moment arise again. Emotion clogs my throat and I blink several times to dispel the tears from my eyes before I can speak. Charlene looks no farther from emotion than I am and I am startled to see remorse shine in the sapphire of her gaze. Regret?

            Am I seeing only what I wish to see?

            “Edmond…I did not mean to hurt you.”           

            I am weak enough that I lean into her further, allow my forehead to rest against hers and I am surprised again to feel her soften in my grasp. Give into this small form of contact. It does nothing to slow my rapidly pounding heart. How can I wish her closer still to me even knowing her betrayal?

            “How could you think it would not cut me to my soul that you would choose someone else? Am I so hidden in my feelings? Could you not tell?”

            “You killed someone.”

            “I…it was an accident.”

            “I am not speaking of the stagehand.”

            I jerk, tearing away from her only to find myself pursued. She follows me across the short distance and I suddenly wish I’d found a larger room to confront her in. She is turning the tables on me, questioning me, rather than I wishing answers from her and I feel fear lodge a stone into my gut. I have no wish to speak of Theroux. I have no good explanations, no lovely frills of self-defense on that account. I merely killed a man. I took his life because he would not stop harming mine. There is nothing noble or goodly about it. She will hate me. Even more so than she does now.

            Hands find my face, forcing me to look at her and I stare wide-eyed at Charlene’s boldness, pierced to my core to see beseeching eyes on mine. She wishes answers from me. Answers she will not be pleased with.

            “Do not make me explain that to you.”

            She is gripping my mask, pressing her fingertips into the pulse at my temples and I try to force her off of me, half-tempted to simply run. I had not counted on this.

            “You must. I know you killed Theroux, your guardian. But I must hear it from your lips. Tell me it was an accident. Tell me there was a good reason. A wonderfully good reason.”

            “There was a reason.”

            Charlene stares at me, her eyes widening as their blue hardens to crystal, “A reason…”

            “Yes,” I answer numbly, using both my hands to separate us. The warmth of her skin vanishes from mine and I instantly miss it. Most especially as I feel icy fear rush through me. I must tell her now. I know this and yet, I feel my fingers trembling as I try to picture her reaction.

            “Edmond, tell me you didn’t murder him. He was your family.”

            “That man was no family to me Charlene. Never call him that. I can scarcely call him a man, let alone that.”

            I shiver as Theroux’s face easily surfaces in my mind as a sickly wavering mirage and though I wish to remove him as a weed in a garden, I find I must see him. In this moment when I recall what I did and why, I must speak of him with a clear picture. I see pudgy hands first, the ones that had become a fierce companion about my neck on so many nights of boyhood and then his dark eyes. So much darker than mine, so dark in fact I often couldn’t find the pupils. They were rather like looking into that of a snake’s.

            I do not notice when Charlene has moved closer again until I feel her breath on my cheek and I realize she is flush against my chest, one hand poised in the center of my chest where my fear lies as naked as I feel. A thundering heart that fears a man long dead and the memories I have suppressed for my survival. It feels horrifically vile to open them now, even for the sake of Charlene.

            “What happened?”

            “You don’t really wish to know.”

            Her fingers twitch on the black dress shirt I’m wearing, pressing one of the buttons into my feverish skin and I ache to capture her against me. Steal a kiss that would neither be appropriate or permissible.

            “I do, Edmond. You must tell me.”

            “So you can think the worst of me?” I know my mouth is curving into an ugly sneer, but I cannot seem to stop the acid or bitterness from slicing through her hold on me, “Oh wait, I must have forgotten, you already do.”

            “You have done this to yourself Edmond. Running off like that made you look guilty. You didn’t write to me. You didn’t call me,” she whispers as if it is an urgent plea rather than little blades to my chest. “What was I supposed to think? What am I supposed to think now when you will not explain yourself?”

            I feel the breath rush into my lungs, a sharp hiss of it and I find my gaze ensnared by the sheerest of blue drenched in tears, something that aches deep into my core and I shake my head at her. “I killed him. I murdered him.”

            “Theroux?” She is standing on tiptoe now, eyes holding mine, pleading for an explanation I know will be lacking but I find my words stumbling out anyways.

            “Yes. I came home one night, angry. I had been told by the bank that my savings account had been drained and closed. I’d had a few thousand francs saved for my schooling I wished to enter and I…I found him sitting on the sofa. Drunk,” my stomach tips, uncertainly willing the champagne I had sipped to froth angrily within and I am half tempted to press a hand there to settle it.

            “Did he drink often?” she asks it softly. I can nearly imagine she pities me. But I don’t want that either.

            “Yes,” I am whispering now. Our faces are so close, her lips are inches away, eyes softest blue and beseeching me. “He drank a lot. All of my memories involve him drinking and angry. Hurting me,” something seems to lodge in my throat for when I speak again I sound strangled.

            “He stole my money. Took everything I’d been working for so I could leave him. Finally get away and never have to lay eyes upon the man who did nothing but torment me. Make me pay for my face, for my parents and any other thing he deemed appropriate. And I snapped Charlene.”

            She flinches, her breath kissing my lips and I feel my arms go around her, keeping her anchored to my chest. I don’t know if she realizes it, but she is even closer than before. The story keeps coming and I wet my lips, desperate to be rid of it now. To somehow exonerate myself in her eyes.

            “I walked in that night so very angry with him. With my lot in life and when he lumbered up from his cursed sofa and started to curse my tardiness. Something broke within me. It broke far worse when he came stumbling across the room and bumped his chest into mine, breathing his whiskey breath over my face. He spat on me. He…he slapped me. As if I were a child still. As if I did not tower over him in every regard. And I stood there like some fearful bug about to be crushed until that last shred of me broke and I…I lunged at him. I knocked him down. I was sitting on top him, listening to him scream at me.”

            I am trembling so badly that I don’t think of Charlene anymore. I only see Theroux. His face near mine, our breaths mingling as I take his life with my hands. Feeling both victorious and painfully ill. Relieved.

            “I killed him. I took his life with these hands that now hold you Charlene,” I blink down at her, seeing a blank expression marking the pearl of her skin and reach a hand to run my thumb along her cheek bone. It feels as satin beneath the pad and I revel in it, desperate to ground myself from memories that should have stayed dead. “I did it because he was a bad man. Because I would never be free of him and I was desperate to be. I learned how desperation breeds disaster and I acted ruthlessly to get what I wanted.”

            “Edmond…” her eyes slip closed under my thumb and she leans into my palm, skin warming me immensely and I feel my mouth dip to press a kiss to her forehead before I can stop myself. She does not stop me. Charlene does nothing but lean further into me, wrapping both arms around my middle, clinging to me the way she had so long ago in the catacombs of the opera house and I find my breathing goes horrifically choppy.

            “Can you forgive me of this Charlene? I would never do it again. I was young and reckless.”

            “Hush Edmond. I don’t wish to think now.”

            I press my lips together, inhaling the softness of her hair and the rose oil that seems to follow her everywhere. “I cannot do as you and not think.”

            She sighs, tipping back so I can see the smattering of tears on her cheeks and my heart lurches in my chest. I am wholly unprepared for her lips to capture mine, or for the flutter of love that presses into me when she whispers my name against my mouth but does not release me. I am helpless but to respond, helpless but to give her all of me and I kiss her as a starved man, clutching her frivolously to my chest as we nearly topple backwards into the mops smelling of mildew at my back.

            “Charlene,” I break from her long enough to get her name out, but she seems lost in this moment as I feel her fingers dance to the buttons on my neck collar and her lips graze my chin and jaw. I lose all conscious thought for several seconds until the coolness of air touches my collarbones and I lurch back into reality. Harsh and angry reality.

            “Stop,” I command artlessly, jerking her from me roughly until she stares up at me with bewilderment and I can feel the heat of my blush staining me from head to toe. I have left her looking disheveled and in a janitors closet no less. This is not what I had planned. Not in the least. But can I be angry? Charlene has clearly chosen me. At last. “You must stop Charlene. I will not have you in some storage closet. Most especially not when you wear another man’s ring about your neck.”

            She blinks at me, eyes moistening once again as she draws a hand to her mouth in surprise, “I was not…I was not offering myself.”

            I feel more heat flush my skin as I drop a hand to my shirt, half opened and gaping near to my belly. If I did not have such evidence I might doubt it myself, most especially as Charlene now looks horrified she could be caught doing such. I feel a sick acid drip into my stomach and I frown, willing her shock to dissipate. “What did you mean by our kiss then Charlene?”

            “I was caught up in the moment.”

            “Clearly,” I answer dryly, unable to hide the anger from clouding my words. I sense I will not like where this is heading, but as I am a creature desperate for pain, I still stride into the danger and stand as a war torn general. “It was not merely being caught up. Do not cheapen what happened.”

            She smiles weakly, “You speak in a way that captures me Edmond. I was entranced by your story and I felt such emotion.”

            “Such pity.” I do not hide my disgust.

            “No. I was so relieved that you had such a reason for killing Theroux. But you…you still killed a man.”

            “Two actually, but yes, please explain how you might kiss me one moment as though I should finish you on this dirty floor and then walk back to Rory the next?”

            Charlene’s cheeks flush as she tries to step closer to me, eyes swelling and this time unable to stop the tears, “You confuse me. Always in your presence I am unable to deny this attraction between us. This connection that fuels us both and I cannot deny that I am in love with you.”

            My heart feels as though it implodes. “You love me?”

            “Of course I do Edmond. How could I not? You are in fact my angel of music. You are the man who I dream about. But you are not Rory. You are not safe. You…” she chokes on a sob, “You are wanted for murder and you wear a mask to cover a malady that no amount of time or love might hide.”    

            Shame spiders through me and I stare mutely at her, unable to speak past the cotton that fills my mouth.

            “Edmond you and I can never be. Not in this life. Our souls may yearn for one another, but can’t you see we are ill-matched in reality? In reality, you and I are…something else entirely and though I don’t wish to say goodbye. I must. For both our sakes.”

            Tears choke me now, threaten to expel me as the soft hearted oaf I’ve become and I shake my head at her, drawing on my anger as strength, “You don’t even want Rory. You would resign yourself to a lifetime in a loveless marriage?”

            “I would have love. I do love him. It is simply not the sort of love you and I share. Nor can it be. Our love is nearly…dangerous.”

            “Yes, but only nearly,” I whisper, biting my tongue to keep from begging. She cannot know that I have already made a vow. I will not give her up. Regardless of her notions of her safety or my worthiness. I am simply a shell without her and that is no way for either of us to live. I merely pray she will see it too, before it is too late.

            “I must be going.”

            “Charlene wait,” I grasp her hand, willing her to see my eyes, the severity of my heart as I speak, “You must know that I will not give up.”

            Her eyes flutter downwards, “And you must know that even though I love you, I must choose Rory. Please allow me to do it.”

            “I can’t.”

            She looks at me again, a resolve burning in her gaze that her wavering voice denies. “I know.”

 

**_Rory_ **

****

            I sit in front of my brother’s fireplace, a half glass of whiskey burning a trail down my throat with an uncharacteristically sloppy shirt and loose jeans matching my scowling countenance. I’ve worn the same clothes two days in a row, which is grotesque by any standard let alone mine and though I’ve no motivation to stand and find my cell phone to call Charlene, I find my thoughts trapped upon her. A poor moth to flame, aching for punishment repeatedly, or a small insect under a child’s magnifying glass on a sticky summer day. Only in this case, my tormentor is a lovely woman with auburn hair, the voice of an angel and eyes that have peered into my soul and found me lacking.

            I scrub a hand down my face, sloshing whiskey as I set down my highball glass on the side table and lumber awkwardly to my feet. I know that Hadley is nearby, that he would disapprove greatly of my overindulgence this night but he has never found a reason to love. Not as I have. Though…I wonder if I too am destined for bachelorhood at the rate I am going.

            Charlene loves him.

            I’d seen her leave the party with a masked man, carefully glancing over her shoulder in my direction as a small child watching after a parent’s wandering eye and I’d known in my gut that the caped crusader whisking her away was _him._

Edmond Leroux. Theroux.

            The murdering snake who thought he might snatch this delicate flower from me. I swallow a slur of curses as I bash my shin into the ottoman that separates me from the stone hearth and manage to stay upright long enough to see the flames blur with tears. Disgusted, I stare horrifically at my reflection over the mantle to see that I am indeed crying as some besotted ape. She is my fiancé. She has already chosen me.

            Then why does my heart ache so horrifically as I think of her sneaking off into that storage closet with Edmond? Why am I haunted at the prospect of what they were doing in such close proximity?

            She’d come back to me flushed, a darkness in her opalescent gaze that had curled my toes in utter uneasiness. Something had shifted between us last night, something I dare not think overly long on because images of her intimately placed with a masked murderer seem to run rampant in my thoughts.

            “What are you doing up so late Rory?”

            I jerk at the sound of Hadley’s voice, startled away from the caramel of my disheveled hair and watery blue gaze. It is a great pity that there is no time to hide the moisture in my gaze or the shameful pink that tinges my cheeks and I stare stupidly at my older brother as he crosses the living room and stops abruptly at the edge of the Persian rug. His polished loafers gleam up at me and if I am not mistaken I can see the contentedness of a night well spent marking his navy gaze fleetingly before it flutters away into sharp concern. Hadley has long since abandoned any attempts at remaining merely my older brother. He has sadly been more a father to me in these last years than our own ever could.

            “Saints you look terrible.”

            I shrug, casually giving him my back though my throat tightens painfully as he takes several steps closer. “I feel terrible.”

            “What is it? Is it Charlene? Has something happened between you two?”

            I sigh, tipping my head to the ceiling. I feel as though the overabundant whiskey in my blood seems to slosh in my skull and I regret the movement instantly. “Is our engagement really so frail that you would assume such?”

            Hadley frowns, soft creases lining his still young skin about his forehead and cheeks, “Yes…No. It would seem a secret engagement is a poor way to start. And I know very little else to have bothered you these last weeks than Charlene.”

            “She is…she…” I find that words seem to fail me and I hold back a soft sound of defeat, instead settling on another rough tug down my whiskered cheeks.

            “What Rory?” I sway on my feet and Hadley glares at me, snatching my arm roughly to jerk me back to the still imprisoned chair I’d recently vacated. “Sit down. You’ve drunk enough whiskey to sink both of us. Dear Lord man, you reek.”

            I chuckle hysterically leaning heavily on Hadley as he releases me, holding his chest to my ear far too long for grown up brothers and yet, in this moment, I feel very much young. I wish he would take me in his arms as he did as a boy and whisper a ghost story to me. An adventure. Anything to distract from the wandering of a man who believes he is being cuckold. Made a fool of. And has no intention of stopping it.

            I am a coward.

            I won’t stop loving her. I simply cannot. It makes no difference that she appears to love another man in the same regard. Is perhaps even sleeping with him when we have yet to do such nocturnal activities. I swallow stiffly, feeling the whiskey threaten upheaval and release a now frightened Hadley.

            “Rory what has happened?”

            “She loves him,” I hiccup softly, slowly releasing him until he is free of me. He does not stand but rather kneels in front of me with wide slate eyes. All of their lustrous color has dulled and his cheeks look very pale, even with the hint of the peach toned fire flashing duskily in his cheeks. He has always been far more handsome than even I and in this moment, I am very jealous of his success with the opposite sex. I have no doubt that is where he came from before finding me. Another conquest. Another beautiful woman with no strings attached.

            “Charlene? You aren’t making sense. Frankly, you are frightening me.”

            “I’m frightening me,” I slur, feeling my eyes fall back into my head, swarming in warm darkness, “Charlene loves Edmond. Even still.”

            “Your fiancé loves another man?”

            “Yes,” I whisper weakly, ashamed to admit to this blaring failure to my successful big brother. “She loves him. Even though he is wanted for murder. Even though he has a garish birth defect. She loves him. I followed her at the ball and she met with him privately in a storage closest.”

            I’m sounding a bit hysterical now despite the fact I can hardly hear my words.

            “Who knows what they did in there? But I can guess. I’m not as foolish as I look, though from my actions as of late, you might not be able to tell. But despite all this, I cannot give her up.”

            “Oh Rory…”

            I snap forward, narrowly missing his forehead with mine and he grips my shoulder to keep me seated. “Don’t pity me.”

            “I don’t pity you, Ror, I fear for you. Your happiness. You invest far too much in a woman who is not of your class.”

            “She is perfectly in my class.”

            “A broke college student who can hardly pay her way through school but manages to rope you? Did it ever occur to you she might be trying to marry you just so she can get your money?”

            I blanch at his acidic tone, though it doesn’t surprise me, “Charlene has never been that way. Never. If you’d ever met her when we were younger, Hadley, then you might know what I am speaking of. But since you haven’t, keep your critical and demeaning comments to a minimum. This woman is still my fiancé and I…Lord help me, I cannot stop loving her. No matter who she keeps company with.”

            “Even if she is sleeping with him?”

            I swallow, feeling my mouth go dry, “Even if…”

            “Rory, that is emotional suicide.”

            “I don’t in truth know what is going on between her and Edmond, Hadley. But it is hardly appropriate and that is what has me worried.”

            “Has you worried?” Hadley leans closer to me, moving to grip a hand on my face. It feels as warm as I do and I realize I am not the only one to have drunk this night. Though Hadley has always been far superior in holding his liquor. “Do you hear yourself? Rory you are worrying the hell out of me. Charlene Darlington is a pretty girl, yes. She is a very talented girl. But she is merely a girl. There will be more girls.”

            “She is my fiancé,” I jerk away from him, suddenly feeling very irritated with his logical words. She is a girl. Just a pretty face among many but she is the girl I had wished to marry. Had let myself plan and hope for. And now, even though I know she still wears my ring, I also know of her secret meeting with Edmond and it sours everything between us. “I will speak with her.”

            “I doubt she will tell you the truth.”

            “Then I will have to be a big boy and decide what I am willing to sacrifice.”

            Hadley levels a guarded look at me, but after a few moments finally sighs loudly, “Make her choose Rory. Don’t wait until she has eaten up your patience and you say things you will regret. If you’re serious about her, then make her choose.”

            Choose? Between me and Edmond?

            Heaven help me, I have no idea who she will pick if I do and it terrifies me.


	6. Chapter 6

Charlene

I have kept my distance from both Edmond and Rory for the last week though I know it is a matter of time before Rory seeks me out as I have been ignoring his calls all week. After my sinfully toe-curling kiss in the closet with Edmond, it seems I cannot put it out of my mind. Regardless of my strong words that promised it to be our end, a goodbye kiss of sorts, I have dreamed of kissing his perfectly soft lips again and again. Only the dreams do not end at a kiss and I wake peppered in sweat and terrified of my own heart’s desires. I want Edmond. It screams for him. Bellows his name over and over as I stare at the six voicemails awaiting my ears from Rory. My fiancé.   
Anger simmers just beneath my skin as a heavy antidote to the passionate pleas my heart makes and I press a finger and thumb to my temples, attempting to push his warm entreaties from my mind. In addition to the parade of sincere skin and caresses which have haunted me endlessly, I cannot seem to hear anything but Edmond’s voice. His soft voice that both threatens and adores. That teases at my ears.   
I jerk when I hear the buzzer on my door and I realize belatedly that I had ordered sushi for my dinner from a local Japanese favorite in lieu of cooking. I have lost all motivation to cook. To clean. To do much of anything and in the back of my mind, I recognize my pattern of behavior as a slow depressive spiral. I don’t honestly care.   
Punching the buzzer to allow entry up to my apartment door, I meander over to the door with my belly growling impatiently and a wad of the little pocket cash I had left. In a strange and somewhat suspicious turn of events, I have been informed by the college that my tuition is covered for the rest of the year. An accidental addition of allotted funds or some such that had been misappropriated. But I have felt nothing but doubt over my surge of luck after the phone call Wednesday and it only manages to fuel my depressive mood as I think of it being one of the two wealthy men in my life.   
I am everything I have despised in the past.   
A woman who plays both sides. Who is too weak to choose the best path and too frightened to choose the most rewarding.   
I reach the door wearing my father’s old UCLA sweatshirt, smattered in little pockmarks and holes and a pair of sagging sweatpants with my hair perched proudly as a little cockatoo atop my crown and three pencils I’d been using to work on Algebra as my tiara.   
But there is nothing quite as hideous as the feeling I experience when I open the door and find a strikingly handsome man with a half black mask holding my sushi in front of him as if to protect him.   
I do what any sensible woman does.   
I slam the door in his face.   
Heart thundering in my ears, face flaming as I think of the surprise on Edmond’s face and then handsome twist of lips as he’d taken in my clothes, I lean against the door, hoping against hope that he will leave.   
“Charlene…”   
“I’m not hungry anymore. Go home. Or back to whatever hole it is you now hide.”  
“I won’t leave. You know I will sit out here on your stoop until you speak with me.”  
I laugh acerbically, instinctively pressing the shell of my ear to the door to hear his melodic voice better. I can picture his easy black mask first and then genteel cinnamon gaze burning me to a cinder and I find my hands have gone slick with sweat on my trashy pants. I’m a walking humiliation this day. Today of all days when he appears on my stoop with my sushi.   
“Please…”  
“No.”  
“We have nothing left to talk about.”  
“Do you really wish your neighbors to find me out here? To think you allow strange masked men into your home? Let me in Charlene.”  
I sigh loudly, reaching for the deadbolt I had slammed shut and find my hands are trembling ridiculously as I peer through the crack at Edmond. He still stands at the door, hands folded politely in front of him carrying a small plastic bag with my dinner wearing the most sedate and plain clothes I have ever seen on him. Aside from the mask, he looks harmless. Normal even.   
How far from the truth such illusions are?  
I open the door grudgingly, peering at my houseguest with such trepidation that we remain silent a full five minutes in my miniscule entryway, only the scrape of breathing accompanying us.   
“I brought your dinner.”  
I blink down at the plastic bag, taking it automatically though I doubt I could eat a bite now. My appetite has flown far from me. “How did you manage that?”  
“He was coming up at the same time. I paid him for the food and told him I live in apartment E10 and it was my sushi he was delivering.”  
I raise a brow at him, surprised by his soft tone though I can feel the energy rolling off of him in waves. He was come to speak with me again, though what about feels different than the last time. Could it only have been a week ago that I had fully believed him as a murderer and I’d resigned myself to the pretty picture of marriage to Rory? Now everything feels turned on its head once more and I am left in shambles.   
“How very quick of you. Does lying come so easily to you?”  
“Yes,” he answers defiantly, his lips twisting into a dark sneer, “As does killing.”  
I look past him, taking a step towards the kitchen before I think of how I must walk past Edmond to get to it. I dare not pass any closer than we stand. “Why did you come here?”  
“I said I would not give up.”  
“And I said you needed to move on. I’m marrying Rory.”  
His jaw flexes prettily, the muscle dancing with such retrained power I feel my mouth go dry as I remember our kiss in the closet. What I truly had been about to do with him regardless of the circumstances. I had felt as though I would offer myself. Now, the very idea fills me with shame and equal parts excitement.   
“You can’t keep doing this.”  
“I can. I will.”  
I shake my head at him, taking a step closer without thinking, my anger rising as I point a finger up at him. He feels much taller this night and I feel the infuriated mouse as I am forced to tip my head back this close to look him in the eyes, “You cannot have me Edmond. You simply cannot.”  
“You love me Charlene.”  
The truth rings hollowly between us sending gooseflesh across my arms in painful splendor and I nearly jerk away from him when he grips my arms, forcing me to look into his gaze.   
“You said you loved me. In that cursed closet and then you ran.”  
“I left, I didn’t run.”  
He hisses, eyes flashing brilliant sienna as he dips to nearly touch his lips to mine, “I kissed you. You kissed me back. You wanted me and it terrified you. Do not begin to fool yourself into believing this fantastical fairytale between you and that milksop is anything but running. It simply angers me.”  
“I…” I feel lightheaded with his breath on my lips, dancing in buttery tresses down the column of my throat and I stifle the urge to press nearer. “I need…I need it to go back.”  
His brow furrows, eyes flashing to mine in sudden surprise and I nearly laugh when he shakes his head in bewilderment, “Go back to what?”  
“I need you as my teacher again Edmond. Just my teacher. As my friend. The man who let me sleep beside him with no strings attached. I just need…I cannot be what you want me to be right now. It is too much. Too all encompassing. Too powerful.”  
“I cannot simply stop being who I am. What you are saying is impossible.”  
“Is it?” I ask desperately, wishing he would simply cede to my wishes. “Is it impossible Edmond?”  
He swallows stiffly, one hand ticking in a familiar clench of knuckles and I feel a pang of something akin to homesickness flood me. “It is Charlene.”  
“At what place do you see this ending? When I am too tired to resist? When I hate you for making me choose?”  
“Am I not afforded the same chance to hate you Charlene? For saying you love me,” his voice catches and I flinch, “For making me love you and then tearing it away from me. I cannot merely give up on something I have sought out my entire existence. I will not!”  
I’ve angered him now and though his words are cutting they mirror my own emotions. I have seemed to search for Edmond my entire existence and now when I have found him and he stands not a foot from me, I am terrified of him. Of his ability to kill and his garish face. Of running as a criminal for loving a man that society cannot accept. I am a coward.   
“You are asking too much of me Edmond.”  
He lifts his chin, pride warring with pain in his ocher gaze and I fail to move back when he catches my jaw in his palm. Callouses tickle my heated skin and he peers down at me as if to assess the validity and truth of my statement. “Am I Charlene? Asking too much?”  
His fingers move to splay across my throat and I know he can feel my pulse fluttering beneath his touch. It has never been this way with Rory. Never has my skin literally felt aflame as it does in this moment. “I am in this little pulse here,” he whispers, lips dipping as if to kiss this pulse point and I stop breathing altogether, though he does not kiss me, “I am in your soul just as thickly as you are in mine and though you claim I am asking too much, I beg to differ. I am asking too little.”  
Edmond’s hand remains where it is, but I feel his lips press to my eyebrows, my forehead and then the tip of my nose. “I could take you now Charlene. I can even feel that you want me to and yet, how could I do such a thing when I know you will think of him when I do?”  
I blink stupidly up at him, shocked to my core by his insane honesty. “Why are you telling me this?”  
“Because it is war now.”  
“With me?” I stutter, breaking from his spell.   
“With both of you. How could it not be?” he seems angry again, “You force an animal, this beast into choosing life or death? What do you think I will choose?”  
“Life,” I whisper, feeling my insides turn to mush.  
Edmond seems different now, so much different than the man who pled my understanding in the storage closet and I realize it is because of me that he has been pushed so far. Gone is the sweet gentleman with a poor temper. In has come the passionate and vibrant but equally terrifying madman who peers at me from an obsidian mask. And I sadly don’t blame him.   
“Yes, Charlene, I choose life. Even if it does not always agree with me, I cannot bear it. Not like this. So, I have written you an opera.”  
“An opera?” I realize I am parroting him stupidly and I clamp my lips closed when he nods and begins to circle away from me to the kitchen where we had stood as simply friends not long ago.   
“Yes, my final act. I have been working on it for fifteen years. Investing myself into this piece and finally, it is ready for you to sing as the prima. I’ve already done all the arrangements.”  
“How?”  
“I am not unaccustomed to getting my way through subterfuge Charlene. How else do you think I have survived these many years and gained such a position? Well,” he frowns, “Past position. My life here in Rochester is over.”  
“You mean to take me away?”  
“I mean for you to choose me,” he whispers angrily, eyes snaring mine in a brandy fury, “To choose me as you should have done from the beginning. As you did in that blasted storage closet.”  
“I didn’t choose you. I was saying goodbye.”  
“Don’t lie to me,” his right hand goes to his chest, eyes flaring at me, lips twisted in a fearsome scowl.   
“I…I really was…I was confused. As I am now Edmond. You make everything too complicated. I don’t know what I will do now. You’ve ruined it.”  
He chuckles but the laugh is full of venom, “Touché, Mademoiselle. It is not the first thing I have ruined. And not even on purpose. I must be getting more proficient in my age.”  
“Stop that Edmond!” my voice has risen to a fearful cry and I grasp him by what I strangely realize is a sweatshirt and shake him, “Why do you insist upon torturing the both of us? Hasn’t fate been clear enough? We are not meant to be.”  
Edmond staggers back at my voice but I find that I am equally angry with him and I don’t stop there, I curse him, curse his name and his music and most especially the blight upon his face and then I find my hand drawing back in a vicious slap that marks his cheek in angry red lines. He is flush against my kitchen counter now, breath sawing out of him in little shushing noises and I realize I have shoved him nearly into my sink.   
“I…I’ll leave,” he whispers raggedly, voice sounding thicker than I have ever seen. I can see tears blurring the whiskey of his eyes and it sinks as a stone in my middle with horrendous guilt. I did not mean to hurt him but it seems I have and it is as though I stabbed myself rather than him. Foolish. Childish.   
“Edmond,” one hand is still gathered in his sweatshirt and I stare bleakly up at the reddening skin where I struck him and realize with shame that it is only growing darker in color. “I’m sorry.”  
“You don’t need to apologize. I deserved that.”  
“You most certainly did not.”  
Edmond says nothing, merely pries my fingers from his chest, slips away from the sink and begins moving back to the door, “I won’t see you again until the performance Charlene. I know there is little chance now that you will choose me. That you might see reason and know that I love…I love you as you well. But I will be there. On opening night when you sing as the prima of my opera and your voice fills the audience with awe, I will be among them and I will wait to hear from you backstage in your dressing room. If you will not have me, then I will leave you. For good. I will let you run off with your charade and lies as Rory rides you off on his white stallion…but know this,” he turns now, one last pleading glance over his shoulder, “I am the man that made you sing. I am the man that you yearn for in your sleep, in your waking and even in your nightmares. I won’t pretend that you are not that to me and if you wish to end your fantastical lies, then you may join me and we might live out our years as two melodies finally entwining. A most exquisite opus of passion and nakedness that you will never find with Rory. You will always be wanting, searching, and lost until you realize this.”  
I know I am crying rather obscenely at the end of his poetic words and shame marks my cheeks as he slips from my apartment without another word. I stand there a very long time, Edmond’s voice singing in flowing arcs of melody and the most frightening part of all is that in my mind I know he is right. I know without a doubt as my voice joins his and the melodies do entwine as long lost lovers that I am fraught with indecision and confusion once again. I know nothing. For all of my bluster and words of needing to choose Rory, I am back to square one and this time, I feel very close to choosing Edmond. I am not sure I can survive without him. 

Chapter 8

Edmond

Rehearsals have gone on for ages. With me listening as an unwanted pestilence within the Intermountain’s opera house bilge. It has been seventeen days since I have seen her.  
Since I stood across Charlene’s kitchen as a raw wound, near begging her to love me as some pitiful creature.   
That creature is gone. Edmond Leroux is gone.   
I don’t know what I am anymore, save this madman who will do anything to live. And living will mean making sacrifices. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for any shred of dignity left me and then praying it is enough. Though I know it will not be.  
Even these wires under my trembling fingers leading to the white blocks of explosive viciousness beneath the opera house will not likely lead me to any place save hell. But I find I will not stop now. Not when there is still a wedge of hope that when all is said and done and when I have sung my final aria, Charlene will choose me.  
Choose me?  
I shake my head, feeling thin tendrils of sweat tickling my cheeks and nose. No, she will choose him. Rory. But at least I will not live very long after she has crushed the organ which she now carries along in her perfect slender hands, unbeknownst to all but me. I am dreadfully aware of her fingers wrapped around its delicate flesh and I can hear my time ticking away as surely as a grandfather’s clock might in my old home.   
Of course, I am well aware that at some point I have lost my dwindling shreds of self-control and what some people might refer to as humanity…but I find such worrying over niceties too tiring at present. Frankly, at present I can scarcely keep my eyes open.   
I have been awake for the last seventy-two hours.   
Exhaustion is clinging to me as a second skin and though I long to curl into myself and find a dark corner of which to disappear in this God forsaken building, I find I am wracked with the inability to shut down. My mind whirs, constantly, as it is now whilst I listen to the chorus go over another round of my opera, blubbering over a difficult piece of the diction.   
My hand slips on the wiring and I drop the screwdriver from my sweaty palm, feeling a curse rise in the back of my throat.   
“What am I doing?” I whisper the words to myself. Voicing aloud something I have asked over and over as the confines of my plans have twisted into darker and darker turns. Will I ever forgive myself for this madness?   
No. But I will not live long enough to care.  
Bracing my weight against the beam at my back, I peer down at the bustle of movement beneath me where light blurs into color and faces on a stage that is bereft of Charlene. Where life is clearly separated from the darkness I linger in. The darkness I have taken to hiding in once again.   
I stay in this position a long time. Watching through a blurry gaze as my arms go slack and my legs dangle on either side of the beam. Though I know sitting as precariously as I am within the rafters of the opera house might be considered foolish when I am this exhausted, I find that sleep finds me rather suddenly and I am too weak to get down or to ignore it.   
Snugging myself deeper into the crumbling plaster and dusty webs, I breathe in a deep lungful of the musty air and am reminded of better days. And Charlene’s warm voice. I smile weakly, hearing her soprano take flight within a spray of triplets and eighths being hummed by a cello’s throaty sigh. It lulls me even deeper to sleep’s edge before I hear something not of my mind at all. But down below.   
Jerking, I move to my knees and then belly atop the beam so I can see best and I watch as Charlene, a man with caramel hair that I recognize as Rory and then a third man looking vaguely familiar march onto center stage. They speak hurriedly, anger marking their words and I have to strain to hear them over the top of my suddenly thunderous pulse.   
I pick out Charlene’s voice first and feel my stomach flutter with anxiety the moment I do. Something is wrong.   
“I won’t do it.”  
“What do you mean you won’t do it?”  
I grip the beam harder, watching as the familiar man steps into better lighting and I recognize him as the opera house’s owner and university dean. Rory’s father. Milan.   
“My dear, I’m afraid Rory brings a compelling case against the man. As do the police. From what he tells me, you are in contact with Edmond Theroux and if you are not careful it will appear you have been in league with him the whole of it. You could be charged as his accomplice.”  
Charlene jerks at nearly the same time as I do and I feel my throat swell to the point I wonder if I may suffocate in these rafters. Charlene will never be taken to prison. Not ever. I would never allow it, but does she? After our exchange in her kitchen, where a vivid memory of her hand coming to a stinging halt on my cheek comes to mind, I wonder if she might be willing to do about anything. Betray any line. Believe the worst of me after all.   
“I am no longer in contact with him.” Painfully true.  
Rory shakes his head. “You are. I am sure of it. You said yourself that you two were close. You cared for him.”  
“Rory…” she whispers, shock spreading in crimson splotches on her cheeks, “I don’t really think any of that is your father’s business and this is not the place to be discussing this.”  
“On the contrary. It is. As a matter of fact, my son and I have been discussing this problem for the last few weeks and Edmond’s capture is of tantamount importance to the Intermountain Opera.”  
Charlene looks as shocked as I feel. Tantamount, Milan? What are you planning? Why involve Charlene?  
“It’s for the best Charlene. You must continue singing the lead.”  
She had been planning on not?  
“I can’t. I won’t. I’ve already said it before and I don’t wish to keep repeating myself. He…he frightens me.”  
My heart dislodges in my chest and finds a hollow somewhere in my gut to claim. It makes me feel dangerously close to vomiting. I know I should deserve it, I should feel nothing save affirmation, since I am a man to fear. Have I not spent the last several hours laying wires for explosives to take down this opera house?   
Yes. But not to kill. Only to destroy. Something that was mine. Never Milan’s.  
“I will protect you,” Rory insists this as if he is her savior and it sickens me further.  
“Never mind that, the police will. If you sing in this opera, Edmond is sure to come. He has taken a liking to you and I am sure he will be present to hear you sing. And when he does, the police will be here waiting for him.”  
“No.”  
Rory moves to grab her arm and I stiffen on the beam, gripping the oaken surface so hard I wonder if I might break my fingers. Her expression wilts, shoulders hunching and I am sure she will give in. But strangely, she appears to be as firm in her convictions to not to turn me in as she has been to not choose me. It spears me in my middle in a most peculiar way. Is it still hope that embitters the back of my mouth with such acidic taste?  
“I can’t Rory! I simply can’t!”  
She turns to leave, breaking from the father and son as though she might choose to run and I watch her go until I can bare it no longer, to find my gaze torn to Milan and Rory.   
“You must make her see reason.”  
“Why? So you can put another feather in your cap? Remove Edmond from your campus?”  
Milan cocks an arrogant brow, “Sometimes I wonder if I ever taught you manners or respect Rory.”  
“You did,” Rory sighs, tugging a hand through his hair, “But you and I both know this is personal for you. No matter that you know the police commissioner and he asked for your help.”  
“It’s election year. Catching an international killer would be helpful to him. And of course, the good publicity couldn’t hurt my own mayoral intentions either.”  
Rory shakes his head, “It’s more than that. For us both.”  
Milan studies his son a moment, eyes looking the same shade of blue in the too bright stage lighting. “Yes. It’s personal. Edmond…Theroux has been a thorn in my side since he came to work for us some odd ten years past. Though brilliant and well-renowned for his ability to pick out musical genius, he is a recluse of epic proportions. He has insisted upon his privacy no matter that his publication of not only his work but just that he works in our university might have brought more business. Far more. It used to infuriate me to no end. And then, there is the personal differences.”  
He shrugs, as if what he has said is not nearly enough, before his expression hardens to one of anger, “Edmond and I have never seen eye to eye. He has his ways and I have mine. I can’t stand insubordination and Edmond seems to thrive off of it. No matter how many times I’ve thought to catch him in his own game…I must admit that he has beaten me. Until now.”  
Rory stares at his father for nearly a full minute before nodding slowly, “Never could stand to lose. Ever…And you really think he will come?”  
“Yes. I do. He is Edmond. He must hear his work performed.”  
Rory starts, “His work? She will be performing his opera?”  
Milan nods, a wicked smile curving his lips. I find I am not at all surprised to see Milan has unearthed the writer. It was only a matter of time before someone did.  
“Yes. I would recognize his work anywhere. Haunting, but still his and I will finally be able to be rid of him once and for all. And of course, with an added bonus of removing any hindrance on your part with Chartreuse.”  
“Charlene.”  
“Yes, yes. I’m sure having Edmond out of the way will speed things along in the bedroom for you.”  
I feel a growl rise in the back of my throat at such blatant disrespect of a woman I know to be virtuous and have to stifle the urge as I begin creeping away from the center beam. One more second of this and I shall merely descend as a great wraith, becoming the true opera ghost the theater company seems to think haunts this place.   
“That’s a very crude way to speak of my fiancé.”  
“I did not think you were serious about that.”  
“I am father. Very much.”   
Milan frowns, “Well, well. Let’s see if she is as serious about you when Edmond is captured. Now, you must convince her of this plan. Edmond may not come if she is not there.”  
Rory does not say anything else, but rather gives his father his back, turning to leave the stage altogether. When Milan finally exits several minutes after of flipping through text messages and emails on his phone, I shimmy my way back to the triad of metal brackets to the forgotten wires. I can hardly think of anything so complicated as that in this moment. I need to cool off. To go outside and take a breath of fresh air. Anything to remove the dreadful sense of foreboding that now clings to me. And this blinding anger.

Charlene

I walk for a long way in the dark, watching the moon turn to alabaster and the streets grow shiny from dew. It feels hardly near midnight, but from the Methodist church bells tolling the hour by the Rochester city cemetery, it appears that is exactly what time is.   
I drag a finger along the wrought iron fence surrounding the perimeter, wondering if the night guard will be on duty and then decide, I don’t care.   
I have needed to speak to my father for weeks now, to consult the one man I felt safe enough to voice every thought with and I am going to do it now, even if it kills me. I scale the little fence easily enough, dropping to all fours and soaking the knees of my jeans as before I manage to balance and stand.   
The cemetery is silent this night, only the sound of a passerby car drifting past or a lost owl breaks the peace of it and I take the gravel path to the east side of the grounds slowly, using the time to collect my thoughts. But each step brings me closer to tears, closer to simply weeping and I find it very difficult to see where I’m going.   
I don’t see where I am headed until I slam face first into the hard planes of the man and even then I am still reeling when I tumble backwards and am met with hard grass under my backside.   
Blinking up at the solid wall of muscle I so rudely crashed into, I pray he is not the night guard and am shaken to my core to find Edmond staring down at me, eyes wide and innocent, lips bracketing into a frown.   
“What are you doing here?” I rush the words, nearly slurring them in my haste to get answers as I scramble in a silly crabwalk to gain my footing. Edmond takes a step towards me, perhaps to help right me, then stops at the look of alarm in my gaze.  
“I asked,” I struggle to keep the waver out of my voice, “What are you doing here? Have you been stalking me Edmond? How did you know I would be here? That my father is buried here?”  
“I didn’t know.”  
I raise an insolent brow, stepping back enough space that I meet with a tombstone. Gooseflesh rises on my arms and I stare wide eyed at Edmond’s opalescent mask, his dark gaze nearly black in the encroaching night. Never has he appeared more frightening than he does now. Is this how they all see him? How he appears to everyone but me?   
He shakes his head at me, as though I have spoken my fears aloud and I raise a hand to stop him, “Answer me then. How are you here? Did you follow me?”  
“No. I come here to think.”  
“To a cemetery?”  
It is his turn to respond with a raised brow and I watch as he eats a little distance between us as if pulled by a force neither of us can stop. “I believe I am not the only one in need of solitude and thought this night Charlene.”  
“I have a lot on my mind. No thanks to you.”  
“Or Rory I imagine.”  
I open my mouth to speak then decide against it. I’ve already had enough bullying for one evening. Regardless of the small part of me that is pleased to see Edmond here, I still wish I’d been given the opportunity to be alone. My mind is no clearer on the matter at hand than it was when I left the opera house some four odd hours ago. I should be at home sleeping peacefully with a giant diamond strapped to my ring finger.   
Instead, I wear it still around my neck. I’m no closer to knowing if I am making the largest mistake of my life and my heart still inexplicably feels torn to be with Edmond Theroux. A killer. A mystery. A man.  
He is just a man here in front of me.   
“Still not wearing it on your finger then?”  
I stare at Edmond for a long moment, taking several sips of the frozen air to quell the building need to close yet more distance between us. “It’s not really any of your business, is it?”  
He merely looks at me, eyes deep pools of bitter chocolate and I recognize the emotion fluttering in their depths for anger laced in pain. A pain that I am not solely responsible for. “It should be.”  
“Edmond, I am still engaged to Rory. That you continue to play otherwise is your problem. Not mine,” I angle myself to move past him, but am stopped by a gloved hand. It is as though warm steel touches me rather than heated leather and I glance down at the offending fingers wondering what it might feel like to simply lean into him rather than away. Would it be so bad to run away with a killer? With a man who is danger incarnate? We would both be hunted but we would have love and passion.   
“You misunderstand me, Charlene, if you think that a hidden engagement with Rory would ever stop me from wanting you. It does nothing of the sort to douse what I feel for you. And even if you do manage to lie yourself into making him a wife,” he swallows stiffly, hand still imprisoning my bicep, lips firming around the word wife as though he wishes to spit it out, “I will still…still,” he trails off, voice sounding wretchedly rough.   
“You can’t. It’s over Edmond. This is over between us and it must forever be.”  
“Will you sing then? Do as Rory wants?”  
I blink up at him, heart plummeting to someplace in my gut and I jerk away from him as heat floods my face. “You were spying on me?”  
“Not exactly,” he confesses, eyes of burnished amber tightening, “But I know he has asked you to perform in my opera. To get me to come and watch the performance where the police will be waiting for me.”  
“Edmond you can’t be there! You simply can’t!”  
“And why not?” Edmond hisses, jaw rippling with anger as his teeth clench. He retraces his steps through the snow, angrily meeting me nose to nose and I am suddenly assaulted with the smells of newspaper, ink and snow crisp air. “You want me gone, don’t you? You want this over? I should go and make it easier for you both!”  
“No!” I shake my head, “You don’t mean that. Even if we can’t be together, you wouldn’t throw your life away.”  
“What life?” he rasps, “My life is in shambles now Charlene. Not that it was much of a life before. You and I both know, that what I had was a safe little cocoon where nothing could touch or harm me. But when I met you…things changed. I can’t go back. I don’t want to and I know, deep in here,” he presses a hand to my chest, warm breath kissing my cheeks, “I know you feel the same. You’re just scared.”  
“Yes,” I whisper, eyes falling from the capture of his ocher ones, “Yes Edmond, I am scared. I would have to give up my whole life to follow you. And I would have to believe your innocence. To give you full credit in your testimonies. Can you imagine doing the same for me?”  
His hands fist.  
“Never mind,” I shake my head, “I could never compare my position to yours. You wouldn’t understand where I’m coming from nor should you. Our lives are so different. But Rory is the same as me.”  
Edmond’s silence breaks, his eyes snapping fire at me, “That spoiled little boy is not the same as you! He is brat to his core and would never give one ounce of what I can give you. He will not love you, the way that I will. Not only on stage but in your marriage and we both know that. Do not insult me by saying otherwise!”  
I think I have stopped breathing for a moment because when Edmond’s eyes soften and his shoulders fall I intake a breath as though I have been submerged under water for far too long. Heaven help me, I know he is right. But it changes nothing. Not really.   
“If you marry him…I won’t keep begging after you. My pleas will end and you will be left to your decision Charlene.”  
The idea of Edmond giving up on me so thoroughly leaves me as cold as the snow under our feet. And it sickens me in equal depths to realize how very unfair I am. Not only does my heart wish the security and comfort of Rory, but it desperately desires the passion and love of Edmond. The excitement and spiritual connection. No matter the costs to myself and future.   
“I know.”  
He pulls a glove off, leaving veined long fingers to the lamplights of the cemetery and I watch in fascination as he draws closer still to touch his knuckles to my cheek. My eyes flutter closed as needles of electricity flow into my throat and belly and I ache for Edmond to keep touching me. How long has it been since his last kiss? Since the last time I felt so utterly alive? I hate that I cannot think of a single time where Rory has made me feel like this. And it is merely a wind chapped knuckle that brushes my skin.   
But it is Edmond’s hand. The one I watched for weeks, flowing over ivory keys and tightened around pencil as he scratched out notes and cues for me. Sighing, I do the unthinkable and lean further into his touch, taking a deeper smell of the ink that clings to his skin. I hear the intake of breath from his lips when my chest presses to his. I know I am crossing the boundaries again and playing the traitorous nymph to not only Rory, but to the man I am so unable to deny in front of me. I can feel his need as clearly as my own and I do nothing to stop him when his lips crush into mine in a punishing kiss.   
I cling to him as though he is the air and I am the seafoam reaching up to tangle with him. Kissing Edmond is so effortlessly delicious that I cannot help but to imagine marrying him. Kissing him every day. Waking after a wedding night of bliss beside my golden warrior with bronze eyes.   
“Charlene!”  
I break away so abruptly from Edmond that I crash into a headstone and nearly collapse onto my rump. It is only by Edmond’s hand that I don’t become sodden from head to toe and I stare widely up at him, seeing the cling of pink to his lips and exposed cheek as he peers down at me with a look that could scorch a soul.   
“Rory is here. I have to go.”  
“To him?” he speaks angrily, eyes once again hardening into the color I have begun to associate with Rory. Jealous midnight.   
“Yes, Edmond. This was a mistake. I have to go,” I whisper, filing past him to seek out Rory who is coming this way now. My heart jack hammers inside my chest at the sight and I turn to tell Edmond to leave. Hide in fact, only to see he has already moved around me and is walking at a fast clip to Rory.   
I see when Rory notices him. Eyes of sky blue snap wide and his shoulders go stiff at the sight of the half masked man stalking past snow-capped tombstones. The scene is ironically beautiful and I shiver as I struggle to keep up with Edmond, desperate to stop a fight. To stop this confrontation that Edmond seems so determined to have happen.   
“What the hell are you doing here? Charlene, why haven’t you called the police?”  
I blink at him, opening my mouth to say something, anything in my defense but find words are quite impossible when Edmond stops in front of Rory with a soft crunch of Dockers on ice then fires a jab straight into my fiancé’s nose. Blood sprays in garish display across the ivory backdrop and I gasp, releasing a very feminine squeak as I dive to stop Edmond from doing Rory real harm, but find I really can’t do anything at all.   
“Stop!”  
“Stand back Charlene,” Rory sputters, covering his nose with both hands as blood flows futilely past the weave of his hands.   
Edmond laughs, rolling his neck with a casual demeanor that is impossible to find anything but attractive. I try not to look when he doffs his jacket in favor of the black button down shirt that is tucked so perfectly into his slacks, but fail entirely when he smirks at Rory in that little way which says he will win. “It is laughable how little you know me Milan. But please, come and prove yourself.”  
“How dare you?” Rory glares, “Were you waiting here for my fiancé to harass her?”  
“I think I did a bit more than harass her Milan. But let’s not speak of that. Let’s see how well your boxing lessons paid off.”  
I blink at both of them, horrified that I am about to witness an all-out brawl with the man I love and the man I have promised to marry but I know without a doubt, I won’t be able to stop them.


	7. Chapter 7

**_Edmond_ **

****

            I watch Rory Milan dash the dribble of blood from his lips with the back of his hand before surprisingly doffing his own jacket and I cannot help my fluttering smile. Even hearing Charlene’s thin voice at my back above snowy whistles is not enough to stop me.

            “I’ve been fighting since I was eleven,” Rory warns me, fisting his hands in what could only be described as a boxer’s start-up.

            I smile grimly at him, “And I’ve had my whole life. So let’s see if you are as up to the task as you claim.”

            I can see I’ve irritated him. That I’ve pressed into a nerve and I revel in the little victory as Rory lunges for me, dropping both hands to leave his face wide open. If only every fight afforded me could be so easily won.

            I counter balance his lunge, spreading both legs wide to prevent the takedown before wrapping both of my arms around his waist and heaving his meekly muscled two-hundred-pound frame onto a shoulder. I can hear his breath rush out, hear my heart thread a villainous melody of straining violins as I toss him down to his back in a heap of limbs.

            With each advantage I gain, each inch I take from Rory, the darkness creeps more thickly through my veins until I can feel the sludge eking towards my heart in a desperate answer to the sound of those violins in my head. The pulsing pain of them. Panting now, I move to immobilize Rory entirely, using both legs to wrap his torso as a monkey might a tree as I trap one of his arms in a T against my body.

            When the muscle goes taut and I feel his elbow joint flex awkwardly to the point I can hear his voice pinch into pain, I stare down the length of his arm with frigid apathy. “Had enough Milan?” I hiss, biting my tongue till I taste blood to stop from humming the now throbbing melody in my ears. It begs me to end him. To finish this futile dance I know I will lose in the end, in favor of blood.

            Blood I can understand. Blood has followed me, wooed me, and stolen my innocence so very long ago it feels now that I very nearly welcome it with open arms and snap Rory’s arm. Nearly.

            “Yes,” Rory grunts, sweat slicking his face and neck as he still fights me. Though, in our awkward position, it is quite clear he would never be able to overpower me. Boxing might have its merits but it is nothing when put head to head against ju-jitsu. Something I happened to have mastered more than a handful of years ago.

            “Edmond, please,” Charlene’s voice is the angel to the lulling sensation of evil beckoning me and I fall slack, releasing a now very angry Rory.

            “You are beaten,” I say mildly, brushing off snow with the ease of a sensai to his pupil. If only it were so amiable between us men. As it is, blue fire arcs in angry waves to me from Rory as he manages to get to his feet.

            “It doesn’t matter,” Rory exhales sharply, finding his fiancé at his side as a good little girl to help him stand. Bitter pain lances through my middle at the sight and I nod slowly, smoothing my hair back with a hand. It feels cold as ice from the snow and is damp against my naked palm.

            Where is the woman I had held in my arms and kissed so passionately? I watch a woman wearing her face touch Rory’s cheek, grip his arm to help him and anger wraps its fist about my throat until I want to choke from it.

            “Charlene,” I speak weakly, fisting my hands at my sides to keep from reaching for her.

            “Get back,” Rory growls at me, the blood under his nose making him look more foolish boy than man, “She is mine. You have lost!”

            “You know nothing at all Milan!” I counter, forced to blink back a sheen of tears from my gaze as Rory pushes Charlene behind him. Her eyes are light crystals, wet with tears as she peers over his shoulder at me and I can see her lips mouthing words to me, saying something but I can’t tell what past my own anger. And pain.

            I hadn’t planned on seeing her again tonight. My plans had all been for a last ditch effort the night of her opening performance. I was to reveal myself in such a different way and now, now that I stand with only scant inches and another man between us, I feel lower than I did on the roof. More desperate and frighteningly mad.

            It is quite clear now that I won’t have anything to live for come tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, after she tells me one last time to leave her alone so she might live her false happily ever after with Milan, I will end my pain in a blazing fire of justice. Poetic irony.

            “I know that Charlene is safer with me. That she loves me and that she has accepted my hand in marriage. It is over. Good God, know when to cut your losses.”

            His words are cutting. Shaming even. But I find smiling to be rather easy and as I dip to gather my coat, unhurriedly draping it over my arm though I feel desperate to leave them both here in this cursed place and hide. I’d rather weep alone than watch Charlene comfort Rory any longer and though I could see her love for me as a burning candle of hope in her gaze earlier, it seems long gone now. All I see is a lost young woman who will be the end of me.

            “It isn’t over yet.”

            “No?” Milan spits at me.

            Charlene’s eyes widen, a single tear tracing the smooth curve of her cheek. I nod at her, knowing we both know what I will do. At least in some small way. She will sing tomorrow and I will come.

            “No. Il n'y a pas de règles dans la guerre. Et je vais gagner,” my native tongue feels rich as honey in mouth as I remind them both there are no rules in war and though neither likely understand me, I know my sentiments carry well enough. Particularly when my gaze holds on Charlene and I say one last thing, despite Rory’s stiffening posture and phone-happy fingers, “Je t'aime Charlene. Je le ferai toujours.”

            Her lips tighten, eyes flooding again and I don’t wait to see what she might say in return, I can already see her eyes responding without her wanting them too. She understands me. And though she does not want the cerulean of her gaze to be as truthful as it is, she cannot help what they answer with.

Je t'aime aussi.

I love you too.

Yes, I think she might. But the problem is, I don’t think it will be enough.   

           

**_Charlene_ **

****

            “There will be police at all the exits. Posted in every crack of this theater. You have nothing to be afraid of, honey.”

            I blink at Rory, finding my voice feels as frail as my pulse. “Yes, let’s hope he doesn’t come and then there really is nothing to fear. Maybe he’s gone. Run to France.”

            “To France?” Rory speaks sharply, his eyes narrowing on me, “Have you spoken to him? Is that what he told you?”

            “No.”

            “Then why would you suggest such a thing? Don’t you want him captured? Put away for his crimes? He’s a dangerous man, Charlene.”

            Exasperation clings to my every word as I roll my neck, “You don’t need to keep reminding me. His crimes speak for themselves. I’m well aware of his various murders.”

            Rory’s eyes look like blueberries tonight and though I feel nothing when I look at him, save a flicker of security and gratefulness that he would still wish to marry me despite this nonsense, I feel as though my soul has departed from me. Nothing has mattered in these last hours. Not since Edmond said he loved me and that he always would in a way that had flushed my skin to the core. Still, the timber of his voice mixed with the flowing French he’d slipped causes gooseflesh to rise on my arms as I contemplate a life alone with Rory. A life left with my decision, just as Edmond had promised.

            No more begging. No more asking. Simply trapped in a prison of my own making in a loveless marriage.

            “Charlene, are you listening to me at all? You’ve been so distracted since the cemetery I can’t help but to think that more went on then you are willing to tell me.”

            “That’s because more did,” I sigh, levelling Rory with a look I hope will convey my feelings and see it is successful because he takes the nearest seat and peers at me expectantly. Though, from the rigidity of his posture, I can tell he knows it must be bad.

            “We kissed.”

            “You and Edmond?”

            I blink at him, “There was no one else there.”

            “Forgive my question,” Rory snaps, “But I’m having trouble computing how you might have accidently fallen into his arms and pressed your lips to his? Or did that asshole take without permission?”

            We both know that asshole didn’t. I gave it.

            “I wanted to kiss him Rory. I…I should have told you sooner. But now, it seems like I’m making all of these decisions without being able to speak to anyone and I want to explain myself. To explain why I feel the way I do because I think you deserve that much.”

            Rory stares, “There is no decision here Charlene. Edmond Theroux is a killer and you are going to help the Rochester police department in apprehending him. A win-win.”

            “No. I’m not.”

            “Yes,” he stands now, eyes dipping to mine in a way that I find suddenly obnoxious, “You are. We discussed this. And you’ve already promised to do your part. You can’t back out now. The audience is awaiting you as we speak and it’s a packed house. Besides all that—what would that do to your career? You can hardly expect patrons to keep donating to the college--.”

            “I love him.”

            “You…you what?”

            I blink several times, hear the hollow thud of my heart answering of its own accord and realize without a doubt that I’m doing the right thing by telling him. I have to end things. I have to go to Edmond. Now, before it’s too late. Before the iron bars on my cage snap closed.

            “I said I love him. I love Edmond Theroux and I’m not going to help you. In fact, I need to be perfectly honest and clear and give you this back. I never should have agreed to marry you. It was a mistake.”

            I thrust the ring into Rory’s hand but he simply stares at me, too stunned to do anything else except stand there with his mouth pressed into a white line.

            “You can’t be serious.”

            “I couldn’t be more so. I need to leave.”

            “Wait, Charlene…wait just one damn second.”

             I don’t wait though. I’m through waiting. In fact, I feel a burst of energy so strong I nearly vibrate to get out of this dressing room and out into the night air. That is until Rory grabs me viciously by the arm, stunning my breath in my lungs at the same time as he firmly pins me to the wall. Fear, acrid bitter and very much real races up from my stomach and I stare wide-eyed at Rory, seeing him for the first time in this light. As a villain and God help me, he fits the part well.

            Hissing, he tightens the hold on my arms until I make a sound of protest, “You listen here, and you listen well. I will not be shamed in front of my family like this. You made a promise to me, something that can’t be merely dashed away and you…” he loosens his grip a bit, looking down at my mouth, “And you made you made one to the police.”

            His breath is warm on my face. And not for the first time, I can smell the whiskey on his breath. Not all together unsettling, except for the fact that he has barred my passage from this room and there is a wary tint to his once friendly eyes that had not been there before. Something I should have noticed in the first place if I hadn’t been so shocked at his interest in me at the first.

            I’ve been fool.

            “I will not marry you Rory. It’s over. You and I,” I say it simply; in as stable and kind a voice as I can manage though I can feel the tremble of fear already trickling down my frame.

            His mouth firms into an indignant line, undoubtedly good breeding keeping him from crushing his lips to mine and making me agree. Though I can see it in his eyes. Danger. Screaming for control.

            “We aren’t making any rash decisions tonight. Not tonight,” he whispers, touching his lips to my forehead then brushing them over my mouth. I wish it didn’t cause such a dividing reaction in me. But it does. I am both soothed by the sudden change in him and alarmed again. Alarmed because this man whom I’d thought a true gentleman is far from it. As evidenced by his firm grip still hesitantly placed on my biceps.

            “Alright, Rory,” I say in an equally gentle manner, drawing back so he might see my eyes for truth. I’ve made up my mind now. And I will spend my last breath protecting Edmond if need be. I have no choice.

            “You’ll sing then?”

            “Yes,” I agree, testing his grip, seeing it give entirely when I go to the mirror to check my appearance. Save the pale complexion and frightened gaze, I should not draw any attention to my duress. No one save Rory will know that this conversation ever happened. That is until I can manage to get out of this opera house with Edmond in hand. Then I will never look back. It strikes me as odd, that now, in the moment of clinching fear, my heart feels so damn steady in my chest. So very sure of its mooring point that above all, I know my decision is final. Irrevocable and good.

            “I’ll sing.” I state again, solemnly looking Rory in the eyes.

            “Yes, yes of course you will,” he smiles, though I can see in his face there is regret burning there. Something more familiar and sane. Comforting. A wave of remorse for my actions ripples over me and I embrace it for a second reaching for Rory one last time.

            His hair feels soft under my fingertips and I relish the smell of sandalwood on his skin, even though it is not my favorite of scents. Unaware that this will be our last embrace, I clutch him tightly to my chest, long enough to hear the span of several heart beats before releasing him.

            “Good bye, Rory.”

            He blinks at me, eyes guarded and confused.

            “You’ll miss the show if you don’t leave now. Hurry.”

            “Charlene…” he trails off, hand brushing past mine as I usher him to the door.

            “Don’t let it worry you. Forget it even happened Rory.”

            It is a miracle that he lets me push him from my door and even more so when he allows me to close him outside of it with hurried hands. I give the door my back once it latches, wrapping both arms around my middle as I consider what I am about to do. I can’t waste time worrying, fearing for the worst. It’s too late for that. I can already hear the orchestra warming, the crowds hushing in anticipation of my entrance. And damn it all, it’s now or never.


End file.
